July 1, 2020 Population Estimates - United States of America
The Census Bureau gave me my Christmas present: new 2020 population estimates for the U.S.A.! Wanted to share a screenshot I put together of the numbers and see if anyone spotted anything else interesting.
The theme of this year appears to be "trends cannot be stopped." States that bled last year worsened this year. States that grew big last year grew this year (albeit less). States that barely grew last year went into negative territory due to the natural increase decline, COVID-19 pandemic, and even worse immigration than what we had last year. OVERVIEW
https://www.countryflags.com/wp-cont...lag-png-xl.png https://i.imgur.com/NAU4WHl.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Kp2JebC.jpg |
Fascinating! And that's from pretty early in the Covid era.
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Interesting information. Strange seeing that California lost instead of gained.
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Using this tool from the U of Michigan, corresponding House changes.
AZ +1 CA -1 CO +1 FL +2 IL -1 MI -1 MN -1 MT +1 NC +1 NY -2 OH -1 OR +1 PA -1 RI -1 TX +3 WV -1 |
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So SC is one of the fastest growing states now? I must've missed the memo on when that happened...
The rest mostly make sense. Texas, Florida, Nevada, Arizona - the long time sunbelt boom states. Washington with Seattle's tech boom. Utah and Idaho with the high birth rates and relatively good economy. And then Delaware... I guess that's the tax haven status plus some suburban spillover from Philadelphia? |
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Idaho's one-year growth: 1.0211 Delaware's one-year growth: 1.0103 For perspective, here's some other high-growth states: Florida's one-year growth: 1.0112 Texas' one-year growth: 1.0129 Colorado's one-year growth: 1.0085 Utah's one-year growth: 1.0145 Nevada's one-year growth: 1.0153 Delaware's growth is mainly due to the burgeoning retirement area, Sussex County. It's been off the radar for a couple decades, first just attracting northern Delawareans to the other end of the state where they used to go to the beach for the weekends in the summer, then progressing to people from the DC area also retiring at the beach, since coastal Delaware is their beach place too. But now it's just beginning to get national prominence. I don't remember the subject of the story in full, but some political article I was reading was discussing retirement places and migration patterns in the US, mentioning the Carolinas, Florida, and Texas, and putting coastal Delaware in the same breath. This was not a Biden thing, either. Long story short, Delaware is the main place going against the general trends in the Northeast. |
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Delaware does not have much Philadelphia spillover. Wilmington and north are not growing much at all. Everything is happening south of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal ("below the canal", as we say it). The biggest growth is in eastern Sussex County, near the beaches. The big growth areas are in/near Lewes, Rehoboth Beach, Dewey Beach, Bethany Beach, Fenwick Island, Ocean View, and Millville. This is the retirement area, and it's big business here. The secondary growth areas are between Wilmington/Newark and Dover: Middletown, Townsend, Smyrna, etc. Some of that may be Philadelphia, but a lot of it is Wilmington/Newark's spillover farther and farther south (relatively speaking, for a small metro area). |
The Midwest continues to stagnate with the exception of Indiana and Minnesota. What do these states need to do to attract more people and businesses?
I’ve been hearing it for the past decade but these figures show how much Utah and Idaho are growing. Colorado growth is slowing while Utah is picking up. Decent growth in Arizona and Nevada as well, surprising to see New Mexico with such low numbers. |
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If anything, the warm and sunny parts like Virginia Beach and Hampton Roads, Southside, and Appalachia are the slowest growing. |
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The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is another area that has not been marketed well. There's no denying that the Great Lakes is in trouble demographically. The oldest Baby Boomers started retiring in 2011, and the oldest Baby Boomers won't begin retiring until 2029. So we're in the middle point of an accelerating exodus of older folks to the South. Baby Boomers who stay in the region will start dying off en masse by 2040. So we're 20 years away from another demographic cliff, and the Great Lakes (and Northeast) are disproportionally impacted. But that trend is inescapable and the only solutions are: (a) international immigration (which the region has an aversion to) or (b) attract young people, which requires providing something of value, most likely high-paying corporate jobs. The Northeast has figured this out (look at Boston's biosciences, New York's financials and entertainment, Philadelphia's telecoms and chemicals, Pittsburgh's healthcare or Washington's tech/defense sectors). The Great Lakes needs to copy. It seems the Rust Belt keeps waiting for de-industrialization or de-globalization to hit, and it never arrives. Even Trump's work to destroy the supply chain dependence on China has simply shifted manufacturing to Southeast Asia. Reshoring and repatriation have been duds (look at all those promised plants like Foxconn Wisconsin that always fall through). The Midwest needs to stop waiting for industry to come back. It won't. They need to reinvent themselves. Ironically, the only state that has done well in creating a modern business ecosystem (Illinois) is struggling demographically due to other issues (corruption, high taxes, local mismanagement, crime, pension liabilities, Downstate Republicans fleeing to Missouri or Indiana). Weather is absolutely a factor. But Minnesota shows that weather is not determinative if a State can provide a good, affordable life with high-paying jobs to young people. |
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New Castle County (Wilmington and suburbs): +3.8% Kent County (Dover and adjacent towns): +11.4% Sussex County (Beaches and dozens of smaller rural towns): +18.8% The interesting thing is that Worcester County, Maryland, just south of Sussex, only grew by +1.6%, even though it has a similar makeup (beach resorts like Ocean City, retirement towns like Ocean Pines, natural sites like Assateague Island National Seashore, lots of small rural towns like Berlin, Snow Hill, and Pocomoke City). It goes to show how important state lines are in demographic dispersion. |
Yeah, the Northeast at least has high wages and real estate prices which suggests that the lack of population growth has a lot to do with difficulties in building new reasonably priced housing.
Despite the supposed exodus of retirees to the South, it isn't causing the median age in those states to be any higher than in the Great Lakes, and at least in the Southeast, you can't even explain that with birth rates because the birth rates in the Southeast and Great Lakes are pretty similar. So clearly young people are making the move as well, presumably for more economically driven reasons. I'm not saying climate isn't a factor, but it can still be overcome if the conditions are right. Like migrations from Southern Ontario and Atlantic Canada to the Northern Prairies (Edmonton, Saskatoon, Fort McMurray) when that region is in a boom cycle represent facing significantly colder winters. The difference between Atlantic Canada/Southern Ontario winters and Northern Prairies winters is pretty similar to the difference between the Great Lakes and Southeast. The ND/SD/NE/MT/WY are able to experience boom cycles too, despite having winters that are harsher than the Great Lakes imo. |
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