Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-05-29
What AtIanta's Census Shoes
Ind What 1t Fails to Shoe.

TTHE figures announced from Washing
ton for Atlanta's 1920 census, while
obviously below the community's in
corporated population, to say nothing Of its
suburban thousands, nevertheless compare
very favorably with the national average.
Having increased from 154,S29 decade ago
to 2OO,616, according to the present Federal
reckoning, this citys gain is 29.6 per cent
as against a mean of 2O.6 for others thus far
reported. This appears the more significant
in light of the fact that while for the country
as a whole the census gain from 1910 to
1920 is seven and four-tenths per cent less
than from 1900 to 1910, for Atlanta it is
nearly two per cent more Scores of cities,
including St. Paul, Kansas City, Mo-; Albany,
N. Y; Columbia, Louisville and Jacksonville
protest that the population officially credited
to them is far below what they actually have.
Rarely, indeed have the bureaus figures in
the present census fulfilled expectations.
Atlanta's growth in the last ten years has
been both intensive and expansive. the busl-
ness district has pressed more and more upon
the residential lines, thus sending the home
seeker farther and farther out. To this
strong tendency add the effects of the great
fire which swept away some seventy blocks,
mostly dwellings, and forced an exodus Of
hundreds of families to points beyond the city
limits; add the wartime restrictions which
shortly thereafter were placed upon building
operations and the ever-climbing costs of con
struction material; add the natural drift Of
urban population into the outlying country,
wherever trolley car communication, good
roads and motor vehicles offer encourage
ment; consider all this, and then reflect that
Atlantas municipal boundaries, embracing
only tWenty-siX square miles, have remained
unchanged during the decade. The logical
conclusion is that great part of the
munity's increase is in the suburbs-people
who in every essential Atlantians, but
who are excluded from the citys formal cen
sus. That this is indeed the case a glance
at the remarkable development of Decatur,
Kirkwood, College Park, Hapeville, Buck
head and other adjacent districts will show.
Decatur alone has attracted a multitude of
discriminating home-seekers, many of whom
moved directly from the city, and today
probably numbers more inhabitants than did
all Atlanta only two generations ago. These
facts considered, it cannot be reasonably
doubted that Atlanta's virtual population,
that is to say, the population which really
counts in the city's business and social activi-
ties, and which really contributes to it's
wealth and progress, is in the neighborhood
of at least two hundred and fifty thousand.
Warrantably proud we may be over the in
crement which these ten busy years have
brought. And with what zest the hale spirits
of the pioneers-the settlers Of Marthasville
and builders of Atlanta-must have rejoiced
when tidings reached them in Elysium that
the town of their loins and nurture has grown
to a metropolis of more than two hundred
thousand six hundred souls Those pioneers
having even more of the Atlanta spirit now
than when they tarried in the flesh, will
understand, of course that "2O0,61 6" is but
ghost of the citys real population They
will not accept title less than 100000, nor
fail to recall that only twenty years ago the
figures stood at 1882, forty years ago at
37,409 and sixty years ago at 1854.
ad Ioi1o
lanta was born for greatness. Decade by
decade she has moved toward her destiny
with eyer rising fortunes. Let us of today
see to it that she grows not in stature alone,
put also IN wisdom and in favor with the
best; in schools and libraries and playgrounds
and parks, in efficiency of government in ad-
vantages for the rank and file in all that
makes for civic character and comelfness.