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Traditionally population growth is measured in percent, not total numbers. I'd say this is especially relevant when discussing growth rates in 2040, because the raw-number growth will inherently depend on the raw-number growth over the prior two decades.
Anyway, with no particular methodology, gun to my head:
Fastest-growing: Montana, Idaho, Minnesota, Utah, Washington, Oregon, Tennessee, North Carolina
Declining: California, New York, DC, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, West Virginia, Louisiana, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Hawaii, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi
So you think weather will no longer play a role in which states people move to?
Traditionally population growth is measured in percent, not total numbers. I'd say this is especially relevant when discussing growth rates in 2040, because the raw-number growth will inherently depend on the raw-number growth over the prior two decades.
Anyway, with no particular methodology, gun to my head:
Fastest-growing: Montana, Idaho, Minnesota, Utah, Washington, Oregon, Tennessee, North Carolina
Declining: California, New York, DC, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, West Virginia, Louisiana, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Hawaii, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi
I'm glad to be getting the ham sandwich outta NC then. And who moves to WV, ME, VT & MS anyway?
All growth rates will slow down dramatically due to aging population, increasing death rate relative to the birth rate, and declining birth rates overall. Texas will end up being one of the fastest growing states by 2040 barring severe natural disasters such as category 5 hurricanes or very long duration severe droughts. Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee will see slowing growth rates and a significant uptick in aging population. All states Virginia northward will see marginal to negative growth rates. Minnesota will likely be the growth leader in the Midwest other than outliers like South Dakota that don't have a state income tax. New Hampshire will outperform most of the Northeast other than Massachusetts due to a lack of state income or sales tax there. The remainder of the growth will mostly be in western states with exceptions being New Mexico, Montana, and Wyoming. Most of the Great Plains states will be very slow growth as well, mostly due to constant out-migration
So you think weather will no longer play a role in which states people move to?
Quite the opposite. In the coming decades, climate change will make the southernmost states less desirable and the northernmost states more so, and sea level rise and hurricanes will wreak additional havoc in the Gulf South. (As for the Southwest, I think the depletion of water supplies and the large but heretofore delayed costs of cities maintaining their huge suburban sprawl will make it harder to live there.)
Water supply is not a problem for California in the future. It is called the Pacific Ocean and desalination and conservation.
Agriculture which uses 80% of human used water versus 20% which is used for the 40 million people/industry/businesses and 10s of millions of visitors. Imagine if we reduced agriculture to 60%. That is enough water for another 40 million extra people. Agriculture in California is feeding the whole of America and overseas exports. So if California agriculture dies of water, guess what America is starving. But again desal is an option but is expensive to build ($1B, plus $50M to operate) and the ones that are already built hardly get used because the state is no longer in a drought.
Also, the state has just beginning to use better water conservation techniques especially in agriculture. Before it just sprayed water in the air through sprinklers in 100-120 degree heat. A lot lost due to evaporation. While efforts to drip water directly into the ground with less loss through evaporation will save 100s of billions of gallons of water.
Also efforts in cities to reduce grass and put more drought tolerant and less water needing plants. I think Phoenix and Las Vegas do this already. But you see less and less green grass lawns and more native grasses, bushes, sages, succulents, desert plants that are both colorful and produce flowers.
Also counties are starting to recycle waste treatment water by either putting it back into the tap system or use for things like parks, or groundwater replenishment. LA City is planning on trying to capture storm runoff in large cisterns during the rainy season. Also the LA in the recent past has allowed people to capture the rooftop rain water into water drums for personal use like water plants or clean off driveway.
Overall The cities, counties and state have so many options that have yet been fully realized in terms of a sustainable water system.
But drought is not just a problem for the southwest. Isnt Texas and the South like Carolinas in a major drought this year?
The QOL is only high if you make an absurd income, otherwise the housing is poor, infrastructure is poor, weather is poor, entertainment is mediocre inequality is high, urban poverty is high (especially given COL) and costs are sky high. That’s a fact. Good public school are nice but are bad districts are still quite bad as the most NAEP assessment reminded us. if the state continues to rely o ln Boston for everything we could see large parts of MA going the route of CT or upstate NY
Furthermore the birth rate in MA is too low to grow that fast-even our increasing immigration won’t produce those numbers. I think we’ll be able to accommodate more immigrants and out of staters after 2040. The north rate here is perpetually in the bottom 5 and affordability is a major issue-much like California.
I think MA residents ove estimate the state’s and Boston’sgrowth simply because were so used to very slow growth. There’s so many places growing faster especially as MA slows down. There just not that many people getting those high paying jobs when compared to the total aggregate population. This is why median income in the state hasn’t shot up any faster than other successful states.
Its pretty clear to me that even more similar to New Jersey over the next 20 years
This. And spot on. Thank you for posting. So many good points here.
I think MA residents overestimate the state’s and Boston’sgrowth simply because were so used to very slow growth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by aries4118
This. And spot on. Thank you for posting. So many good points here.
Per the OP, MA is 14th in the country for raw growth. It’s growing faster than 6 currently larger states by my count (NY, PA, NJ, MI, OH, and IL), all of which are significantly larger by land area (except for NJ).
I don’t know if we’re “overestimating” anything.
Furthermore, here are the 15 states ranked by growth in terms of new people per square mile:
Per the OP, MA is 14th in the country for raw growth. It’s growing faster than 6 currently larger states by my count (NY, PA, NJ, MI, OH, and IL), all of which are significantly larger by land area (except for NJ).
I don’t know if we’re “overestimating” anything.
Furthermore, here are the 15 states ranked by growth in terms of new people per square mile:
In your first point tou listed 6 states in struggling no growth/negative growth areas-thats not impressive.
To your second point, as for people per square mile thats all good but still our urbanized area isnt as dense as the ones in many other urban areas in the 15 states you listed. Boston Metro could stand to be much more densely populated if properly governed and planned.
Per the OP, MA is 14th in the country for raw growth. It’s growing faster than 6 currently larger states by my count (NY, PA, NJ, MI, OH, and IL), all of which are significantly larger by land area (except for NJ).
I don’t know if we’re “overestimating” anything.
Furthermore, here are the 15 states ranked by growth in terms of new people per square mile:
Massachusetts was passed by Arizona recently and will be by Tennessee before long. It’s treading water barely, growing a little bit slower than the country as a whole.
I'd rather see a map breaking it down to the county level. Even in many of the higher growth states, it's only a handful of counties responsible for the growth, and in many cases the rest of the state is actually declining.
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