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Maybe other parts of the Sun Belt might be slowing down, but Texas keeps on going. We won't slow down, and we'll welcome all of you from other parts of the country. A big HOWDY to all of you!
Might have something to do with the tens of thousands of illegals crossing over each day, which I think would be the case for any state with the misfortune of sharing such a large border with Mexico. But keep patting yourself on the back for the "growth" your state has supposedly achieved.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Paddington
Might have something to do with the tens of thousands of illegals crossing over each day, which I think would be the case for any state with the misfortune of sharing such a large border with Mexico. But keep patting yourself on the back for the "growth" your state has supposedly achieved.
Yes, that's true, too, but that isn't why I posted. Nothing in my post suggested anything about illegals, so let's not go there. Go back and read my post again. What I've implied is that we have people moving to Texas from other parts of the country, and by that, I meant America. We've welcomed them with new job opportunities, and more will come.
Florida's not going to keep growing forever. Growth in South Florida has really slowed down, and the same will probably happen elsewhere in the state over the next few decades.
These numbers represent net loss/net gain. So Broward is not just slowing down, it has lost big time.
Meanwhile, look at Miami-Dade (just South or Broward). A huge net gain.
That does sound rather annoying, but that's because the fact of the matter is that a lot people move to the Sun Belt from the Rust Belt not because they necessarily dislike where their original homes were, but because of what you've described -- a better job climate. So, while it may come off as contradictory, I imagine it has much to do with the bittersweet feeling of reluctantly having to leave where your roots are as the only means to find job opportunities.
Excellent point, duderino. Their complaints really do express a sense of loss, not a sense of superiority. And it's doubly hard when you must leave because of lack of economic opportunities in the place where you think they "do things so much better"..
Do I see 3 or 4 counties in Florida that are "red"? Kind of shocked about that.
I mean it's Florida after all.
The red county on the west coast of Florida is actually Pinellas County, FL. Pinellas is a peninsula on the gulf and it is almost completely developed with no more vacant land except in the extreme northeastern part of the county. It is the most densely populated county for this reason with almost a million residents. There is no where to develop except for up at this point and that is exactly what you are starting to see in downtown St. Petersburg and Clearwater and along the beaches. I highly doubt that when the real census happens in 2010 that there will actually be a decline in population even though the projections are showing pretty steady in the future.
The red county on the west coast of Florida is actually Pinellas County, FL. Pinellas is a peninsula on the gulf and it is almost completely developed with no more vacant land except in the extreme northeastern part of the county. It is the most densely populated county for this reason with almost a million residents. There is no where to develop except for up at this point and that is exactly what you are starting to see in downtown St. Petersburg and Clearwater and along the beaches. I highly doubt that when the real census happens in 2010 that there will actually be a decline in population even though the projections are showing pretty steady in the future.
What about Monroe County (the Keys plus some swampland along the Gulf Coast not included in Everglades NP)? That one surprised me.
A lot of this is also driven by the fact we're using percentages. <Random City> can grow by 1,000,000 from 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 and we're seeing a 50% growth rate. If that same city then grows by another 1,000,000 people in the next decade, they're only seeing a 33% growth rate.
So yeah, the % is slowing down, but the sheer numbers of people aren't. I think it's quite healthy if some of these high rates are coming down to earth a little. Do we really want Dallas to go from 6,000,000 to 8,000,000 in just a decade or two? Once you're seeing large cities with very high % growth rates, you're going to see infrastructure being extremely stressed, lots of traffic, random growth patterns, etc.
I think it's good if these cities catch up with themselves a little as far as their vitality and livability, roads, water supplies - as opposed to just overflowing with a constant influx of hundreds of thousands of new residents. We're all obsessed with "the higher the growth the better" and being NUMBER ONE in growth, but ask anyone who goes through it for a prolonged amount of time, and most of them will be ready for a little break.
And to the people who are suprised about Florida.....
South Florida has grown exponentially for decades now. It has become very expensive to live there, the schools are very poor, the crime is very high AND you almost need to know fluent spanish just to get around many areas. Not suprising if the population has declined a little bit.
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