NEWS staffers’ efforts result in comprehensive census supplement

We already knew the general trends when we set out to cover the 2000 Census. Maine people are getting older. Younger Mainers are going elsewhere to find jobs, as they have for decades.

But some of the numbers we uncovered when the first Census results were released in March were shocking. They should be a wakeup call for the economic and social planners, especially those in eastern and northern Maine, who earn their keep by figuring out ways to help the Pine Tree State keep up with the rest of the nation. For example:

. Maine has the fifth slowest growing population in the country.

. We have the fourth oldest population.

. Our young adults have the lowest birth rate.

. We see the smallest percentage of racial minorities, including Hispanics, on our streets.

. Finally, and perhaps most disturbing, our young workers are leaving in droves, and taking their babies with them.

Nearly a third of our population between the ages of 20 and 34 disappeared in the 1990s as baby boomers grew up and few people remained to replace them.

Taken together, these young adults and their children formed the lifeblood of Maine – the latest college graduates, the newest entrepreneurs, the adventurous and the creative people of the future. Short of a new Back-to-the-Earth Movement, like what occurred here in the 1970s, or an unlikely influx of foreign immigrants, they will never be replaced.

These numbers represent the heart of Maine’s economic and social dilemma. It is speeding up in the growing global economy in which a financial hiccup halfway around the world can cause layoffs at a paper mill in Maine.

The state’s crumbling demographic structure is the subject of this special supplement to the Bangor Daily News, which contains reprinted stories and stories that are appearing here for the first time. The numbers are here, as well as analytical stories by our reporters, who questioned social scientists and average citizens to find out what those numbers mean.

With the 2000 Census, for the first time in history newspapers were able to process huge amounts of data using computers to inform readers within a day or two after release by the U.S. Census Bureau. Our computer-assisted reporting specialist, Michael O’D. Moore, crunched the numbers for use by reporters Susan Young, Gordon Bonin, Jeff Tuttle, Ruth-Ellen Cohen and free-lancer Mal Leary. They wrote news features on diversity, the graying of Maine, the continuing rise of the single-parent household, political redistricting and other subjects.

Then, local reporters, including Wayne L. Brown, Diana Bowley, Sharon Mack, Rich Hewitt, Walter Griffin, Misty Edgecomb, Judy Harrison, Diana Graettinger, Mary Anne Clancy and Tom Groening, produced the county profiles and other stories that accompany the tabulations of town-by-town population trends for our readership area and beyond.

Eric Zelz, our graphics director, designed many of the charts and graphs that accompany stories for easy reference. And photographers Kevin Bennett, Bob DeLong, Miller Pearsall and Caleb Raynor took the photographs that are worth a thousand words. Designing and copy editing most of the supplement was Janine Pineo, who also constructed the 16 county-population graphics.

The result is a reference work that will be of service to readers until the 2010 Census appears. Everyone from economists and sociologists to students writing term papers will be able to use these numbers to peer into the future and understand the past. They are the skeletal remains of where we have been and the geography of where we could be headed.

Wayne E. Reilly

Project Editor