Census estimates see Pittsburgh’s population standing still

A recent campaign ad from Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto made a claim that the city is growing on his watch, but the U.S. Census Bureau doesn’t see it that way.

New population estimates released Thursday by the federal bureau suggest a small population decline in the city for the third consecutive year — a loss of 239 residents from 2015 to 2016 to end up at 303,625 last July 1. Once the eighth-largest city in the nation, Pittsburgh stands 63rd (with the wider metropolitan area ranked 26th). Having lost more than half its population since the mid-20th century, the city is somehow smaller today than Lexington, Ky., and Stockton, Calif., with St. Paul, Minn., nipping at its heels.

The size of the loss is negligible — the city supposedly lost about eight of every 10,000 residents in the course of a year — and any reported decline should not come as a surprise. The Census Bureau previously reported an estimate that Allegheny County lost 3,933 residents in the same period. Those losses have to come from somewhere, and the city’s reported share — based largely on the federal government’s analysis of housing changes in each municipality — is actually small in proportion to its size.

But any failure to gain residents runs counter to Mr. Peduto’s stated goal, upon taking office in 2014, to grow the city by 20,000 people within a decade.