Staten Island: Big In Our Hearts, And Ranking In The Mid-30s In Terms Of Largest American Cities

Staten Island’s growth is slowing:

Staten Island’s population expansion slowed last year, with 1,878 new residents bringing the total population to 464,573. Still, the small increase bucked the trend of population loss elsewhere in the city.

The Island registered a growth rate of .4 percent between 2004 and July 1, 2005, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest annual county population estimates, which are based on birth and death records, tax returns and other administrative data.

. . .

“We continue to be a faster-growing county in a mostly stagnant state,” Dr. Jonathan Peters, a professor of finance at the College of Staten Island, said yesterday. But the Island has fallen “behind the curve” in meeting the growth projections made for it several years ago by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council, Peters added. “We were supposed to be at 470,000 by now,” he said.

The number of Islanders increased 4.7 percent in the first four years after the 2000 Census, which put the borough’s population at 443,728.

People are always saying how, were it not for the travesty of 1898, Brooklyn could be one of the largest major American cities, but you may or may not have realized that at 464,573 people, Staten Island is even bigger than places like Cleveland, Atlanta, St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati (source).