Census continued

Remember me geeking out about the Census here? Well, a few weeks ago, I was driving, listening to NPR and about screamed and drove off the road when I heard a story about Salina's efforts to get everyone to return their forms on the NATIONAL affiliate of NPR. Not a local story, but it was picked up by NATIONAL. Seriously cool (you can here the story HERE).

Well, because I'm a geeky-geek, I went to the Census Web site to see how Salina's doing. :) (There are 2 more days to mail them back, people, so DO IT!!!!).

Overall, Kansas is rocking out a 71% rate of return.

Saline County and the City of Salina is holding strong at 81%!!!!

Now, there's a list of the top 50 places with the highest returns. But they limit it to cities with more than a 50,000 population. Salina is SO CLOSE to that number. In fact, if we had a 50,000+ population in the last census, we'd be in the top 7-18 cities in the COUNTRY! How cool is THAT? :)


Here are a few maps of places I live/have lived to see the participation rates (coz I'm a geek like that!).


Good, but we can do better than that! ;)


Ah, Hays ....


Look at Salina! My neighborhood has an 84% return!

So, I know there are some sour pusses out there who want the government to buck off. If you are cranky about the current happenings, and I say "be glad we live in America and you can publically grumble about that!" But to people who say "spending is out of control and I won't participate" ... I say the following to you: "By NOT participating, and NOT returning your form, YOU DIRECTLY are costing the government MORE money. Quoting directly from the Census site now: ' If 100% of households mailed back their forms, taxpayers would save $1.5 BILLION dollars.' " ... SOOOOO, don't be a hater.

More information is available at 2010.census.gov. It looks like they want everything returned by April 17, so there's still time, people! :)