Voodoo forecasting: Technical,political and ethical issues regarding the projection of local population growth

The case of an energy production community in Colorado is used to illustrate a) the great need for reliable subnational population forecasts, especially in communities expecting rapid population growth, and b) why such projections, as currently performed, cannot be reliable. Explanations for failure in forecasting are found in the methods themselves, the unavailability and unreliability of key data, politics, and the intrusion of the designers' and users' values into the forecasting models. As one solution it is proposed that forecasting be reconceptualized from a technical to an ethical issue and that it be based upon an active rather than a passive planning/forecasting philosophy. As such, the community and industry would set a desired, realistic goal, and forecasting models would be run backwards to determine the economic-demographic paths by which this goal could be achieved.