Florida’s Growth Rate Expected to Subside, Study Says

Florida’s explosive growth should subside over the next quarter of a century, in part because retirees are choosing to settle elsewhere, according to a University of Florida study.

Florida’s waves of migrants from other states has leveled off as retirees seek homes outside Florida and younger residents leave the state to find jobs, said June Nogle, a demographer at the University of Florida’s Bureau of Economics and Business Research.

The bureau’s latest population projections say the state will be home to 20.3 million residents in the year 2020, an increase of 43% over 1995. In contrast, the state more than doubled its population during the last 25 years, from 6.8 million in 1970 to 14.1 million in 1995.