18.3 Million Seen; Big Latino Growth : Southland Population to Jump 43% by 2010

Boosted by a big growth in the number of Latinos, the population of a six-county Southern California area will rise to 18.3 million by 2010, up 43% from last year’s estimated population of 12.8 million, the area’s major regional planning group reported Thursday.

The Southern California Assn. of Governments (SCAG) said in a major study of the Southland’s future that Latinos, the fastest-growing ethnic group, will constitute almost 40% of the combined population in its member counties--Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside, San Bernardino and Riverside--in 2010.

Anglos, who have low birthrates and who are leaving the area in larger numbers than other groups, will constitute just 41% of the population in 2010, compared to 61% in the 1980 census.

The Asian population also will grow fast, the report said, rising to 9% in 2010 from 6% in 1980, the year of the last census. The black percentage of the population is projected to remain stable, at roughly 10%.

Minority Population

“Clearly, the minority population (blacks, Latinos, Asians and others) are a larger piece of the regional pie,” the SCAG researchers said.

It is the result of a trend, the report said, that began more than 16 years ago.

“Before 1970, net migration from other parts of the nation--Frost Belt to Sun Belt migration--contributed to much of the population growth of Southern California,” the study said. “However, since 1970, net domestic migration has come to a standstill.

“Also since 1970, the region has witnessed an influx of immigrants. This influx has contributed to both the growth of the region’s population and its changing ethnic population.”

The study is the first such intensive look at the area since a similar SCAG report in 1982. Growth projections in that report were smaller than in this one, largely because of new projections of higher birthrates, particularly Latino.

The latest report is significant because it documents the expected population change regionally, using new post-1980 census figures, along with improved computation methods, where such changes have previously been reported only on a city or county basis. SCAG officials said they will produce detailed city and county breakdowns of their findings later.

Employment will also grow more than previously expected, the report said. Jobs will increase from 5.9 million in 1984, the last year for which figures are available, to 8.9 million in 2010, a 51% increase.

The shape of the economy will also change. According to the study, services, including the fast-growing industry of providing business services, will become the biggest employer, while manufacturing will drop to third, behind trade, vivid proof of the decline of basic industry, such as auto- and tire-making, in California.

SCAG officials said the big population increase and the change in ethnic composition of the region poses great challenges to government and business leaders to provide roads, schools, transit and other facilities.

Unless that is done, said Mark Pisano, SCAG executive director, “a decline in the quality of life will continue.” Jon D. Mikels, SCAG president, said “growth-control polices” may be adopted by some local governments.

Dominant Role

Births, rather than immigration, “will play a more dominant role in the region’s growth than it has in the past,” the report said, with a high Latino birthrate causing much of the increase.

“The Hispanic natural increase is almost 5 1/2 times greater than that of blacks and over eight times greater than non-Hispanic whites,” the report said.

Immigration--legal and illegal--will begin tapering off from the 1980s average of 120,000 a year to 95,000 a year in the first decade of the next century, the SCAG experts projected, using a computerized study of trends.

The SCAG researchers, basing their assumptions on U.S. Census estimates and academic studies, estimated that illegal immigration into the six-county SCAG area amounts to about 50,000 a year and would drop to an average of about 45,800 in 2010.

Mobile Population

The report shows the six-county area will continue to have “a mobile population,” with 9 million leaving between 1980 and 2010 and 8.1 million arriving. Of the 9 million emigrants, the report said, about two-thirds will be Anglo.

A SCAG official said the trend of Anglos leaving has been noticed for the past 10 years.

“Why, we don’t have an answer to,” he said.

The report said that while the population of the six-county area will be older on the average in 2010 than it is now, it will be younger than that of the rest of the country.

“The influx of immigrants who are typically young and in the reproductive age groups and the higher fertility rates of the Hispanic population account for a younger age structure of the SCAG population as compared to the nation,” the report said.