• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, August 2, 2006

Claritas, a company specializing in demographic estimates and forecasts, announced Tuesday that a recent study shows the population of New Orleans is slowly climbing back to pre-Katrina levels. That's almost a full year after the monster hurricane breached the city's levees and flooded neighborhoods. The Claritas study includes county-by-county estimates in addition to grand totals.

On a related note, radio ratings firm Arbitron announced it would release its first study of New Orleans audiences since Katrina hit on August 14. Depopulation and dislocation were so extensive that for a time, Arbitron couldn't meet its own minimum target of 400 reporting households, forcing the firm to cancel its summer and fall 2005 and winter 2006 surveys. Arbitron combines data from its local sample set with the local population estimates from Claritas to determine radio listenership.

One of the major Claritas findings is a more even distribution of population between counties, known as parishes. This readjustment follows earlier disparities that were likely caused by evacuees clustering on higher ground. In fact, some counties actually saw population increases after Katrina, while others were virtually abandoned. For example, in October 2005, East Baton Rouge had received 60,000 extra evacuees for a total population of 475,220. As of July, that number had declined to 435,000.

The picture is less cheerful in the most depopulated areas, however, where recovery seems to be sluggish at best. Orleans Parish, one of the most heavily affected neighborhoods, saw an initial decline from 450,000 residents to 92,660 in October 2005. So far, only 214,486 residents have returned--less than half the original total. Given these numbers and recent interviews with displaced former residents of New Orleans, it seems plausible that many will never return.