By Mariel S. Clark
DNAinfo News Editor
MANHATTAN — As the deadline for returning 2010 Census forms nears, Washington Heights North leads the city as the area with the highest response rate so far, data compiled by the mayor's office showed.
Just over 66 percent of households in Washington Heights North had mailed back their census forms, compared with a 52 percent citywide average, according to the data.
The neighborhoods that make up Northern Manhattan have typically been considered "hard to count" due to larger immigrant populations, lower incomes and a higher number of more mobile, single people, officials said. But despite these factors, the area's response rate was higher than almost every other part of the city.
City Census Coordinator Stacey Cumberbatch said that these factors are "what makes New York, New York."
"That's what makes our city dynamic and so great, and growing. We've been growing when other cities haven't," Cumberbatch said.
Washington Heights South, with 65.6 percent responding, and Inwood, with a 66 percent response rate, were on track with the national average of 66 percent.
The city's response rate lagged behind the national average because of neighborhoods like Midtown South, which only has a response rate of 46.6 percent, and Central Harlem North and the Polo Grounds, with a response rate of 52.3 percent.
Cumberbatch said Midtown's low response rate could be due to its many corporate apartments and second residences, which may have been empty when the census forms arrived.
In Central Harlem, those "hard to count" factors, including NYCHA buildings and lower income residents, may have made a difference, Cumberbatch said.
“A low response rate could have very serious consequences for our city," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a recent statement. "For each person who is not counted in the census, the City loses about $3,000 in Federal aid every year, money that could be spent on services our communities all want and need.”
Starting in May census workers will go door to door to homes that did not mail back the form. But with just hours to go until the April 15 deadline, census takers still hoped to see a rush of New Yorkers mailing in the forms.
A "100 percent [response rate] is possible," said Cumberbatch. "I think that's what we should shoot for."
