Across U.S. 24 at Mountain View East, census workers missed 89 of 149 trailers. Or maybe they figured we're not important enough to count. Nationwide, census officials figure they missed at least 4 million people in 1990. The undercount left health clinics understocked, Head Start programs understaffed and planners unprepared for traffic jams, air pollution and other byproducts of growth nationwide. The city and county of Denver estimates that 5,288 children were overlooked by the 1990 census.
Officials blame the undercount for shortchanging social services programs, especially welfare.
State officials have worked over the past few years to ensure that no Coloradan got overlooked this time. At the direction of the state legislature, Westkott spent much of 1999 and 2000 traveling the state, counseling cities and counties on how to persuade their residents to stand up and be counted. The census really is the basis on which we as a people make all our public decisions. Without it, it would be next to impossible for planners to do their job. Planners aren't the only people who stand to benefit from census data.