Annual Data & Projections Report 2024 

The information contained in this document is gathered from different sources such as the City of Loveland Building Permit Report, the U.S. Census Bureau, the American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year Estimates (ACS is a part of the Census Bureau), and The Group (real-estate company). Because the United States was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, data collection for the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS), the nation’s most comprehensive source of population and housing information, was severely disrupted.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, these disruptions significantly impaired the quality of the resulting estimates, which were inconsistent, or had changed in unexpected magnitudes. These inconsistencies caused serious quality issues in the 2020 ACS 1-year data estimates.

One of the concerns the U.S. Census Bureau had is that people who responded to the survey had significantly different social, economic, and housing characteristics than those who didn’t respond, which lead to “nonresponse bias.” Modifications were done to correct the nonresponse bias by giving more weight to responses from underrepresented groups, but doing so created low-quality data because statisticians could not address the bias per the U.S. Census Bureau standards. 

In a typical Census year, the data collection would be more accurate and reliable reducing those biases. Subsequent in-between years would be sorted and analyzed before distribution using the most recent ACS 5-year estimates, for example, 2023. However, because of the COVID-19 disruptions and potential “nonresponse bias” manipulation of U.S. Census Bureau data, City staff relied heavily on the existing housing stock numbers and the number of building permits issued to get a more accurate representation of Loveland’s population growth. 

For any additional questions, please contact:

Community & Strategic Planning
P: 970.962.2745
E: eplan-planning@cityofloveland.org