Southland’s Census Story, in a Word: Boom!
Southern California picked up an estimated 1 million new residents over the last three years as the Bay Area -- a population magnet during the dot-com boom -- stagnated, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.
The figures show Southern California’s pace of growth accelerating from the late 1990s -- a finding that has significant consequences for a region already confronting congestion in everything from freeways to classrooms.
In a reversal of past trends, most of Southern California’s recent growth came from births -- particularly in older, immigrant-heavy cities in Los Angeles and Orange counties -- rather than from resettlement of adults seeking work, demographers said.
Still, Southern California continues to attract new families -- particularly to inland communities from Antelope Valley to Temecula, where homes cost less than in crowded coastal counties.
“Cheap dirt ... cheap houses,” said John Husing, a Redlands economist. “No matter what anyone says, people continue to want a single-family detached home, and they will crawl over the hills from Orange and Los Angeles counties on their hands and knees to get it.”
The most pronounced effect comes when all those people start moving around, he said.
“The biggest consequence is transportation, congestion,” Husing said. “We cannot build our way out of it.”
John Karevoll, an analyst for DataQuick, a company that tracks housing sales across the Southland, said the population growth is a big factor -- along with low interest rates and the attraction of real estate as an investment -- behind the phenomenon of escalating housing prices in the midst of lagging job growth.
The current trend is a reversal of one seen a decade ago, when the Bay Area was surging and Southern California was mired in recession after the collapse of the aerospace industry.
“This is a very different set of demographics and housing than you had exactly 10 years ago,” said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto. “Ten years ago, the region lost 1 million people, housing prices plummeted, and building actually stopped between 1990 and 1994.... The Bay Area is showing the pattern now that L.A. showed in the early ‘90s.”
Indeed, the region’s population growth appears to have accelerated slightly since the recession began in 2000. The six major Southern California counties grew by about 4.9% from 1997 to 2000, according to estimates by the state Department of Finance, and 7% from 2000 to 2003, according to the new census estimates.
Those estimates, released Thursday, reaffirm Los Angeles County as the nation’s most populous, with 9.87 million residents as of July 1, 2003. Orange County ranked fifth in the nation with 2.96 million people, followed by San Diego County, with 2.93 million residents.
In terms of raw population growth, Los Angeles County ranked first nationally, with 352,176 new residents, followed by Arizona’s Maricopa County with 317,111 new residents. Riverside County ranked third with 237,263 new residents; San Bernardino ranked sixth, San Diego, seventh and Orange County, ninth.
By contrast, three Bay Area counties -- San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara -- lost population. Alameda grew by 1.2% and Contra Costa grew by 5.5%.
In sheer numbers of new residents, five Southern California counties -- Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Orange -- ranked in the top 10 nationwide, according to the census estimates. Others on that list included two in Texas -- Harris, which includes Houston, and Tarrant, which includes Fort Worth -- but together they added only 308,000 new residents, less than a third of Southern California’s growth.
Although counties elsewhere in the nation grew at faster relative paces -- Virginia’s Loudon County, a Washington, D.C., suburb, topped the list with 30% growth -- no region of the country is undergoing a population explosion at Southern California’s levels.
In a broad sense, Southern California’s residential growth over the last three years is akin to scattering the entire population of San Francisco and Marin counties among communities from Ventura south to San Ysidro, a flow of humanity measured in worsening traffic jams, escalating housing costs and portable classrooms parked on school campuses.
“It’s here, it’s coming, and more of it’s coming for the next 20 years, and we better start doing some serious regional planning,” said Andy McCue, director of the UC Riverside Center for Sustainable Suburban Development.
McCue predicted that swelling school-age populations in Riverside County alone over the next decade will require the construction of 36 elementary schools, 11 junior highs, and 10 high schools -- costing an estimated $1.34 billion.
Already the population growth has overwhelmed planning attempts. The Southern California Assn. of Governments last month issued low grades for the region’s transportation, air quality and school systems.
“We did horribly,” said Hasan Ikhrata, SCAG’s director of transportation, planning and policy. “But we are trying.”
Yet failure is relative.
“Even though we have huge congestion, compared to other cities in the world of our size, we’re not as bad,” Ikhrata said. “Take Paris or London or New York, and they’re worse.”
Still, some experts said the growth falls within their predictions for the region -- a little low for Los Angeles County and a little high for Riverside.
“These numbers show we’re about on track,” said Dowell Myers, a professor of urban planning and demography at USC.
“I wonder what’s going to happen if our economy really rebounds and we start having job growth.... This could be the lull before the storm when we come out of this jobless recovery.”
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Top 10 in growth
Five Southland counties rank among the top 10 nationwide in population growth, according to census population estimates from April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2003:
Rank County Population Change since 2000 census: Numerical Percent.
1. Los Angeles CA 9,871,506 352,176 3.7 2. Maricopa, AZ 3,389,260 317,111 10.3 3. Riverside CA 1,782,650 237,263 15.4 4. Clark NV 1,576,541 200,803 14.6 5. Harris TX 3,596,086 195,508 5.7 6. S.Bernardino CA 1,859,678 150,244 8.8 7. San Diego CA 2,930,886 117,053 4.2 8. Tarrant TX 1,559,148 112,929 7.8 9. Orange CA 2,957,766 111,477 3.9 10. Broward FL 1,731,347 108,329 6.7
Source: Census Bureau * (BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX) Census tally
Southland growth since 2000 outpaces the Bay Area.
County Pop. % change
Southern California: Riverside 15.4 San Bernardino 8.8 San Diego 4.2 Orange 3.9 Los Angeles 3.7
Bay Area: Contra Costa 5.5 Alameda 1.2 Santa Clara -0.2 San Mateo -1.4 San Francisco -3.2
