Detroit's population is expected to be the hardest for U.S. census workers to count accurately.

Census officials told The Associated Press that more than 8 in 10 city residents live in neighborhoods considered "hard to count," due in part to a high number of abandoned or dilapidated buildings.

Detroit's response levels were lower than the national response rate in 2010: 64 percent of city residents answered questions in the last census, while the national response that year was 74 percent, the AP noted.

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One local group working to connect residents with census workers reportedly estimated that each of Detroit's 220,000 residents in households that did not respond to the census cost the city between $2,000 and $5,000.

“You just can’t walk and knock on somebody’s door, now,” one resident said of barriers facing census workers, according to the AP. “You’ve got to find somebody in the neighborhood that the people trust. Not strangers. They’re scared of strangers.”

A researcher at the Urban Institute added that census observers “know we are going to have an undercount among the black population,” a particular problem for Detroit, where the African American population represents 80 percent of the total.

Thirty percent of households also lack a reliable internet connection, hampering efforts to provide hard-to-reach residents the ability to answer questions remotely, the AP noted.

“Everybody else outside of us gets help before we do,” another resident said of the census, according to the news service. “I don’t blame nobody if they don’t want to participate, or if they don’t want to help, or if they don’t want to say nothing no more. They’re tired of speaking their mind.”