Potsdam Village population analysis

One of the difficulties we have in the village is estimating our full-time residents.  As a college town we have a lot of part-time, non-permanent residents (i.e., students). The difficulty arises from the census counting.  When the census occurs it counts some of the students, but not all of the students, and it does not distinguish between full-time and part-time residents. 

To try to get a better estimate of how many full-time residents we have in the village I undertook an analysis that eliminated the inaccurate count introduced by students. Fortunately the census data does report the number of people in various age brackets. If you look at the graph on the second page you will see that the village (red line) has an unusually high spike of people in the 18-24 age brackets compared to St. Law. County overall. Many of these are students, but not all of course.

By assuming that the full-time resident population in the village had the same age distribution as the county, I was able to adjust the village population for the 18-24 age brackets.  The result is shown by the green line--which now compares closely to the county (blue) line. I believe this analysis gives a good estimate of the full-time residents of the village.

The results are:  Estimated full-time resident Village of Potsdam population=4851

Some interesting things to notice. 

• The census (year 2000) estimate of village population=9425 (Actually our census count now stands at 9413 because of a  2004 correction, but I ignored this small difference.) The census counts about 4601 students, or about 2/3 of the students.

• For 2008, the student population at Clarkson was 3045, and the student population for SUNY Potsdam was 4332.  Almost all of these students were "residential", living either on-campus or in the village.  As a result, the total population of the village is about 12228.  This is an undercount of 2803 compared to our official census number.

• In the Village of Potsdam, students comprise about 60% of the total population.

• This unusual population mix has implications for our budget and taxes.  For example, since students in general do not pay property taxes--nor do the schools they attend--it falls on the remaining 40% of the population to pick up the full cost.  Put another way, each taxpayer is paying for at least 2.5 people.  Actually the ratio is considerably higher, since children do not pay taxes and property taxes are often paid by a family rather that each adult member of the family.

A similar analysis was done for the Village of Canton.