If you're a newcomer to town, you're in good company. Census data recently presented by Selectmen Chair Marie Sobalvarro shows a churning Harvard population with a 30 percent turnover each decade. A third of Harvard households moved to town since 2000, a third moved to Harvard in the 90s, and a third were here before 1990.
Sobalvarro drew data from the U.S. 2010 Census and the annual U.S. American Community Survey for her presentation, "Who are we, anyway?" Sobalvarro gave the presentation at the Harvard League of Women Voters' first of three forums in the series, "Charting Harvard's Future."
According to Sobalvarro, the data shows Harvard is:
- Mostly homogenous: more white, than not;
- Mostly well-educated: 60 percent or residents have bachelor degrees, a third of adults over 18 have a graduate or professional degree; and
- Mostly affluent: more affluent than not. Four-fifths of households have incomes equal to or greater than $100,000, one-fourth of households report incomes over $200,000.
Sobalvarro pointed out that of the households that hold mortgages in Harvard (75 percent of homeowners), 35 percent spend less than 20 percent of household income on housing, but 23 percent spend 35 percent or more of their income on a mortgage, a situation she described as "highly leveraged."
Harvard is aging, but so is Massachusetts, Sobalvarro said. There are fewer children under five than there were 10 years ago and, more people over 65. Whether more people are living longer, fewer older families are moving out of town, or some other factor is at play, she didn't know, Sobalvarro said.
School choice data showed that Harvard's steady school population has been balanced by increasing and decreasing numbers of choice students as class sizes changed.
Not many residents would think that Harvard's male/female ratio was 58 to 42, but those are the census facts. Havard's demographic data can be deceiving, however, because of the town's "quartered population," the residents of the Federal Bureau of Prisons' medical center in Devens. The center is home to about 1,100 inmates.
Not counting those in quartered housing, Harvard's 2010 population was 5,473, Sobalvarro said. And the male-female ratio a more balanced 49 to 51.
"It's all a matter of perspective," said Sobalvarro, who cautioned that who town residents see themselves to be is important for future planning, just as "future planning is important to who we want to become."
The three Charting Harvard's Future forums are the first series in the new League of Women Voters' Elizabeth S. May Memorial Lectures, which honor the longtime community activist and visionary who died last spring at age 103.
In an introduction to the first forum, former selectman Lucy Wallace described May as brilliant but humble, a woman who "rarely spoke of herself," and who was very "focused on planning for Harvard's future.