San Antonio Report
by Shari Biediger
A unique resilience has allowed the city of San Antonio to thrive in adversity, a quality born of its diverse population and culture, said U.S. Census Bureau Director Robert L. Santos.
During his keynote address Tuesday at the San Antonio Report’s CityFest event, its 2023 theme “Meeting the Moment,” Santos said the city’s history and multicultural background are tremendous assets.
“San Antonio continues to evolve and draw strength from that,” he said.
The San Antonio native also acknowledged that it was good to be home, in the city where he attended Little Flower Catholic School, Holy Cross High School, “La SAC,” what he called San Antonio College and Trinity University.
In May, Santos was surprised with an honorary degree from the Alamo Colleges District after his uplifting commencement speech at the Alamodome.
“It doesn’t matter how long you have been away from the city, it will always, always be home to me,” he said.
Santos was named to the top Census Bureau post in 2022, the 26th director and first person of color to lead the federal agency responsible for counting the U.S. population.
The appointment came on the heels of a tumultuous 2020 census that undercounted Black and Latino people. He told The New York Times that those flaws led him to work on rebuilding trust in the community.
In January, UTSA announced that it had signed an agreement with the Census Bureau to collaborate on projects that expand how the agency collects and uses data.
“I like to think that the UTSA-Census Bureau partnership is contributing something to the city meeting the moment,” Santos said.
In his address, the statistician recounted San Antonio’s exponential growth and increasing diversity, how he thinks data should be used and tools the Census Bureau provides local governments, entrepreneurs and even parents to make smart decisions.
San Antonio’s population grew by 8% between 2010 and 2020, making it the seventh-largest city in the nation with a population of 1.4 million and growing.
“This city, in fact, was third on the Census Bureau’s list of fastest-growing cities and San Antonio had the third-largest city population growth since 2021,” Santos said. “So it’s accelerating. People are moving here. A lot of people.”
But it wasn’t always that way. In 1950, San Antonio was ranked 25th in city size by population, Santos said. “It was smaller than St. Louis. It was smaller than Cincinnati.”
It’s also changing and becoming one of the most racially and ethnically diverse U.S. cities having one of the highest diversity indexes in the nation.
While the Hispanic population continues to grow, so do other groups in San Antonio and the state.
The 2020 census revealed that 60% of the Texas population was comprised of people of color, Santos said. Texas is home to the largest Nigerian community in the nation and has a population of Asian Indians second only to California.
“This city and this state is a microcosm of America’s future,” Santos said.
Most of the state’s population growth is centered in the Texas Triangle, destined to become a massive economic megalopolis of which San Antonio will be a part, Santos said.
“San Antonio is changing and rapidly growing in those ways, but maybe not so much in others,” he said. “The city remains challenged by poverty with 18% of the population [living] in poverty, which is higher than the national average of about 13%.”
The city draws strength and pride from its culture, an asset that can be leveraged to meet the challenges of poverty and of housing affordability, gentrification, economic development and community development, Santos said.
But, “these challenges are best addressed from a foundation of knowledge,” and data-driven insights, he said.
Santos described a number of tools and surveys provided by the bureau that can be used to access data for decision-making, including My Community Explorer and the American Communities Survey, which offers a “treasure trove of data” on the city, population and housing.
The bureau chief also promoted the Census Business Builder, which can be used to “help entrepreneurs and businesses and governments decide the best places to start a business or to build a manufacturing plant or to use as a basis for economic involvement.”
He said parents could use the bureau’s Post-Secondary Employment Outcomes tool to help guide their children when choosing a career-education path.
But knowing the numbers isn’t enough, he added. Critical thinking, perspective and experience are also important for both individuals and civic leaders. He called upon journalists and professors to demonstrate and teach that understanding data is only one component of an overall assessment.
“We also need to bring our whole selves to the table,” he said, adding that diversity and inclusion allow for more informed decision-making and planning.