Shrinking Land, High Living Costs Slow County Growth

The population boom in Orange County, where land is becoming scarce and living costs are high, has slowed dramatically from an annual average of 70,000 new residents in the 1960s to only 37,000 a year in the 1980s.

Meanwhile, San Diego County, with considerably more room to expand, has surged past Orange County to become the second most populous county in the state.

And in a surprising turnaround, Los Angeles County’s population is soaring again--surpassing, so far in the 1980s, all the growth of the 1970s.

Trends Weren’t a Big Surprise

The population trends, based on mid-decade estimates recently released by the state, were not all surprising, however.

Demographers had anticipated that high housing costs and shrinking availability of land would slow Orange County’s growth and eventually lead to San Diego County surpassing it as the state’s second most populous county, behind Los Angeles.

“It is . . . inevitable that they would pass us,” said Bryan Speegle, manager of Orange County’s advanced planning division. “Orange County is a very small geographic area--one of the smaller counties of the state.”

Orange County “ran out of easily developable area and (San Diego County) continues to bring on line easily developable area,” Speegle added.

William Gayk, Orange County demographer, also was not surprised when the rankings of the two counties switched.

“It’s pretty consistent with what we’ve been saying,” Gayk said. “We projected (in 1982) 2,130,000 as of July, 1985. It came out to 2,127,900. It’s still significant growth, but not at the level that was predicted 10 years ago.”

Reflecting on the changes, Mark Baldassare, a UC Irvine social ecology professor, said: “More and more, the growth we’re seeing in Orange County is a maturing of the population--the fact that our growth is coming from natural increases as opposed to (new residents) moving here.”

He pointed out that Orange County’s birth rate is not as high as Los Angeles County’s, largely because “a smaller proportion of the (Orange County) population is minority.”

Los Angeles County demographers credit a substantial portion of growth there to the high birth rate among that county’s minorities.

Moreover, Baldassare said, Orange County “has fewer ethnic enclaves, which are now acting as magnets for foreign immigration in Los Angeles. (Orange County’s) pull compared to Los Angeles for foreign immigrants is currently less.”

Still, Los Angeles County’s resurgence is counter to the one-time belief that the population boom ended there in the 1960s.

In Sacramento, Elizabeth Hoag, research manager for the state Department of Finance’s population unit, said: “Some experts were predicting that there would be no more growth--that Los Angeles County has had it. But (it’s) certainly changed from the 1970s.”

Stalled and even losing population at times in the early 1970s, Los Angeles County is now growing by nearly 120,000 people a year, about three times the yearly average of the last decade. If the trend continues, the county will add more residents than it did in the 1960s, when the population rose by 1 million.

“Los Angeles County’s population . . . is on a roll,” George Marr, chief of the county’s population studies, said. “The growth is sustaining itself and should continue through the remainder of the 1980s, at least.”

However, Orange County so far in the 1980s has averaged just 37,000 a year, and the overall growth since 1980 has been only 10%. That compares to an average of 51,000 people a year during the 1970s, when it grew 36% during the decade.

San Diego County, meanwhile, has continued to add about 51,000 people a year in the 1980s--matching its growth of the 1970s. The recently released state figures put San Diego County’s population at 2.13 million, compared to Orange County’s 2.12 million.

Big Area in the North

San Diego County “has a huge amount of area in the north county, which is one of the focal parts of growth now,” Baldassare said. “In some ways, north San Diego County is one of the last regions of coastal California to develop. My guess is it is going to . . . become another Orange County, a separate identity from (the city of) San Diego . . . very much a high-tech, white-collar-oriented center. That’s what is propelling the growth.”

Northern San Diego County, he said, “is benefiting from two factors: A spill-over from southern Orange (County) and to some extent from growth in the city of San Diego itself.”

Meanwhile, Baldassare and demographers characterized Orange County’s population as “maturing”--a growth based not so much on new residents moving into the county as on births.

Orange County has become “a place where people seek jobs rather than housing,” Baldassare said. Increasingly, he said, the county’s growth is based on industry rather than homes.

“I think what it says about Orange County is (that) we’re going to see the (population) growth come internally,” Baldassare said. “And the growth of the southern county is going to be determined by people moving (there) from the north county.

“I expect that the (resulting available housing) in the northern county will (serve as) sources of housing for immigrants and minorities spilling over from Los Angeles.”

‘Open System’

Gayk said that “basically Orange County is, in effect, much more of an open system if you were to compare it to San Diego County, which is, in effect, a closed system.”

“People being attracted to that (San Diego) region because of job growth . . . are more or less resquired to live in San Diego County. Orange County is entirely different. We’re much more accessible if you don’t live within the county.”

Baldassare agreed, pointing out that workers in Orange County have increasingly chosen to live in southern Riverside, San Bernardino, southern Los Angeles and even northern San Diego counties.

But Speegle contends that while growth may have slowed in Orange County, it is far from over.

“Orange County still has a lot of land--20,000 acres of the Irvine Ranch that remain unplanned and over 20,000 of Rancho Mission Viejo that are unplanned,” he said. “So that could require 50 years to plan and develop.”

But Orange County never again will see growth like that in the ‘50s. “I don’t think we’re ever going to see 70,000 a year again. We’ll see zero to 45,000 for another 30 to 50 years,” Speegle predicted.

The projected population for Orange County for the year 2010 is 2,831,100, or about another 700,000 residents, he said.

Although the rate and number of new residents have declined, Gayk said, Orange County continues to add the equivalent of “a medium-sized city every year. That’s quite a bit of growth.”

Not a Big Decrease

Although the number of people moving into Orange County has decreased some,” Gayk said, “it hasn’t really decreased a lot.”

Planners had predicted that by year 2000, Orange County would have about 2.8 million residents. The new projection is 2.6 million.

“It’s not a drastic change,” Gayk said. “It’s a slight adjustment downward. It’s just saying that it will take four to five years longer than what had been anticipated in the past.”

In Los Angeles County, Marr estimates that the population hit 8.075 million last month, up 598,000 from the 1980 census. Hoag’s Sacramento office makes an even higher estimate--8.135 million, up 658,000 from 1980, an increase of 8.1% in six years. During all of the 1970s, the county’s population grew by only 435,000, or 6.3%. From 1971 to 1974, the county’s population actually declined each year.

In sharp contrast with previous population surges, Los Angeles County’s growth in the 1980s is not the result of a wave of migration from other parts of the United States, Marr said. This time, for the most part, it is simply a result of more births than deaths. Latinos and Asians are accounting for most of the births, the latest ethnic breakdowns show, and non-Latino whites now make up less than half of the county’s population.

The county and state population estimates, compiled between censuses to help plan and allocate government services, are based on such data as driver’s license registration changes, birth and death figures and voter registration records.

Similarities Noted

Demographers find striking 1980s population similarities between Los Angeles County and its San Francisco Bay Area counterparts--San Francisco and Alameda counties.

San Francisco, Hoag points out, declined in population by 37,000 in the 1970s. Since 1980, however, thanks largely to an influx of immigrants from Asia and Latin America, the population has increased 56,000, pushing the total to 735,000.

Alameda County’s population has risen by 92,000--to 1.19 million--since 1980. That is almost triple its growth for the 1970s when it, too, went through three years of population decline.

Hoag said, however, that the Navy’s presence in Alameda County is a significant factor in population swings.

“If two aircraft carriers pull out, that can mean a population change of 10,000,” she added.

In analyzing Los Angeles County’s new growth, Marr said that “natural” increase--a surplus of births over deaths--accounts for about 80%. Based on trends through 1984, which Marr believes have not changed, about 70% of the natural increase has occurred in the county’s Latino community, which makes up 31% of the county population but has a sharply higher birthrate. Blacks and Asians account for most of the rest of the increase.

Among the non-Latino white population, Marr said, births and deaths are roughly equal to each other--a lack of growth that means non-Latino whites are no longer in the majority in Los Angeles County.

Non-Latino Whites

In its mid-1985 report on the county’s ethnic mix, the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce estimated that non-Latino whites now make up 46% of the county population, down from 53% in the 1980 census. Latinos are the second-largest ethnic group at 31%, up about 3.5% from 1980; blacks account for 12% of the population, unchanged from 1980, and Asians and Pacific islanders now account for 10%, up about 4% since the start of the decade.

“This broad ethnic range has never been so pronounced,” Marr said. “The county has become a true polyglot center.”

Marr said the rest of the county’s growth comes from immigration, both legal and illegal, mostly from Asia and Central America.

None of the increase, the demographers say, is domestic--that is, from elsewhere in California or the United States. In fact, figures compiled from driver’s license changes show that nearly 198,000 people left Los Angeles County in 1985 for other counties and states, and 175,000 moved in.

This translated into a net loss of 23,000 residents. Marr believes this trend may be easing, because 1984’s net loss was 30,000.

Although population growth has occurred throughout most the county in the 1980s, county planners say that nearly half of it has taken place in an irregular bowl-shaped area encompassing Central Los Angeles and extending east to El Monte, west to Hollywood and the mid-Wilshire district and south to Watts-Willowbrook. The experience of the Los Angeles Unified School District would seem to confirm this, for it is this area in which school overcrowding is becoming most severe.

Projections Changed

Los Angeles County’s surge in population, meanwhile, is causing forecasters to change their projections for the years ahead.

The county’s 1980 forecast that the population would reach 7.85 million at the turn of the century is, of course, outdated now. The new, unofficial forecast is for 8.6 million. Supervising regional planner George Malone, though, believes that figure could be reached as early as 1993 or 1994.

The state Department of Finance also is planning to revise its 8.5-million population forecast for the year 2000.

But Hoag, of the state Finance Department, said that state researchers are far from certain that the county’s high growth rate will continue into the 1990s. For one thing, they do not expect immigration from abroad to remain at the current high levels. Hoag also believes that the county’s birth rate, following the national trend, will drop as fewer women enter the childbearing years, and the number of deaths will increase with changes in age structures.

“The county’s growth depends on so many things,” she explained. “I also don’t believe Los Angeles County will be as attractive for people from other parts of the United States because it’s (already) crowded and is becoming even more so.”

But population forecasting is tricky. The current surge was already under way, for example, when a Rand Corp. report two years ago proclaimed an end to Los Angeles County’s booming growth. The privately circulated report predicted that the county’s growth would be much slower through the rest of the 1980s and the 1990s.

Los Angeles “can no longer expect the rapid growth that it enjoyed in the past,” Rand senior researcher Kevin F. McCarthy wrote.

He now concedes that he was off base. “The turnaround in the 1980s has caught me by surprise,” he said. “The degree to which (population growth) has gone up is beyond what I thought. But we’re still not talking about a boom town. We’re talking about moderate growth.” POPULATION GROWTH Los Angeles County is growing by nearly 120,000 people a year, about three times the yearly average of the last decade. If the trend continues, the county will add more residents than it did in the 1960s, when the population rose by 1 million. Growth has slowed sharply in Orange County, but remains strong in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Los Angeles County Population Growth In Millions 1930 2.2 1940 2.8 1950 4.2 1960 6.0 1970 7.0 1980 7.5 1986 8.1* * Estimate SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA POPULATION GROWTH BY COUNTY In Thousands

%Change %Change 1970 1980 1970-80 1985* 1980-85 Los Angeles 7,032 7,477 +6.3% 8,085 +8.1% Orange 1,432 1,933 +35.0 2,128 +10.1 Riverside 462 663 +43.5 821 +23.8 San Bernardino 685 893 +30.4 1,086 +21.6 San Diego 1,367 1,862 +36.2 2,132 +14.5 Ventura 381 530 +39.1 600 +13.2

* Estimate Source: California Department of Finance, and Census Figures