Inside Indiana's counties: township population changes, 1990 to 2000.

• Author: Marcus, Morton J.
• Position: Statistical Data Included

What does the Census of 2000 tell us about land use within our counties? Are we sprawling out? Is our population growing evenly or unevenly? Here are some answers. They will not satisfy our every concern, but they may provide some indication of what is happening in Indiana's 92 counties.

Here is an overview of what we will be investigating:

* Population growth in Indiana townships between 1990 and 2000.

* Uniformity of growth. A county may grow by 10 percent in population, that growth may be very unevenly distributed around the county. In one extreme case, all the growth is in one township with no change in any of the other townships. Another extreme would have all townships growing at exactly the same rate of increase.

We will use two measures--the range of growth rates and the coefficient of variation to describe how different growth rates were within each county.

* Internal shifts. A county may show no change in population, but there may be considerable shifts of population within the county as some townships grow and others decline.

We will measure those shifts and relate them to the county's population and its change in the 1990s.

* Concentration of population. Despite the different rates of growth, at any one time the population of a county may be concentrated in one or a few townships. This is the typical pattern of our counties, with population concentrated in the county seat and sparse settlements elsewhere in outlying townships.

We will use a concentration index and its changes to see if our county populations are becoming more or less concentrated.

In each of these four sections, we will provide data for each county through visuals and point out which counties show the most or the least growth, uniformity, internal shifts, and concentration of population. (For specific data on these factors for each county, visit www.ibrc.indiana.edu).

Population Growth

Indiana has 1,008 townships. La Porte County has 21 and Allen, 20. Blackford, Brown, and Ohio counties have just four townships each. Seven townships have populations over 100,000, lead by Center Township in Marion County and North Township in Lake County, which each exceeds 165,000. Six of these seven townships are located in Marion and Lake counties. The seventh is Wayne Township in Allen County.

Figure 1 (on the inside back cover) shows the distribution of townships by size in 2000. There were 802 townships with 5,000 or fewer persons. This amounts to 80 percent of all Indiana townships. The smallest township in Indiana is Wabash in Gibson County with 44 persons. Townships with 1,000 or fewer persons decreased in number from 280 in 1990 to 239 in 2000, while all other size townships grew or remained the same.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Four townships showed no change in population between 1990 and 2000. Declining townships totaled 224, of which three (Clinton Township in Cass County, -50 percent, Washington in Harrison County, -35 percent, and Center in Rush County, -25 percent) lost one-quarter or more of their population. Three of the four fastest growing townships were in Hamilton County, led by Fall Creek Township (287 percent), with Haddon Township in Sullivan County also growing rapidly due to a new prison. Figure 2 shows the distribution of townships by growth rates.

Townships between 10,000 and 20,000 had the best average population growth rate between 1990 and 2000 (see Figure 3). Very small townships and the largest townships showed virtually no growth.

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

Uniformity of Growth

If all townships grew at the same rate, then the difference between the highest and the lowest growth rates is zero. A broad...