This resident response placed Plano at the top among Texas' 15 largest cities, according to a report presented at the Sept. 14 Plano City Council meeting. In a comparison of those cities larger than 192,000, Plano ranked first, with a lead of roughly 5% from second place Garland as of Sept. 14.
At the same time, Collin County has a response rate of 72.6%, Texas has a response rate of 61.4%, and the national response rate is 65.8%.
Close to 66% of those who self-responded in Plano did so online, according to the committee presentation.
The 2020 response rate in Plano is just under 2% less than the 2010 final response rate. The group had to slow its activity due to the coronavirus pandemic beginning in March.
"I'm certain that if we had been able to keep up our same level of activity for the last three months, we would have exceeded the goal of how many people we were able to get to respond to the Census," committee chair Alan Johnson said.
Plano's 2020 Census Committee partnered with Plano ISD and the Collin County Business Alliance to reach harder to count areas and local businesses for a higher response rate. These partnerships will be used again in the future, Johnson said.
The two areas that were recognized as the lowest count areas in 2010 remained the lowest count numbers this year. The committee will continue working to change that in the future, Johnson said.
"As we go forward, we've got more work to do to on convincing those folks that they need to respond to the Census and that this is a worthwhile activity for them," Johnson said.
Door-to-door enumeration ended at the start September, and final Census numbers will be due to the president in December. The first release of data will take place in April 2021, according to the committee presentation.
