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I believe these census projections are straight line projections of the change from the previous decade. I doubt any real thought is given to how various local industries will fare, or what the physical limits of the location may put on population growth.
The DC population projection is an example of the straight line projection of a half century of population decline continuing. However, as part of a general urban renaissance in the US, DC has actually started to gain population, to my and probably a whole lot of other people's surprise.
As of 2007 Wyoming had reached it's predicted population for 2030. In the 1990s when the energy industry was in a slump, that 2030 prediction made sense, but now Wyoming is booming again. It could surge past the 2030 projection and then slump back to it in time for 2030, but I think that's another case of the census not having much imagination.
Plus other states like Arizona and Nevada could face ecological limits to their growth. Or the law of large numbers could come into play, as they can't maintain the previous percentage rate of growth.
Still, the OP presented us with an interesting bit of data.
An ever-expanding and growing District of Columbia is going to lose 150,000 people, huh? I could give you a more accurate by pulling a number from where the sun don't shine.
In 2030, Washington will have a population of 613,839. Seriously, that is a more accurate number.
There are some stunning comparisons to be found. America has some very heavily populated states which will continue to grow, but the population numbers squeezed into square kilometers is low in the US.
For example Houston is on population par with Athens, Greece. Except that Houston includes nearly six times as much space as does Athens. The same number of Athenians as Houstonians squeeze into a miniscule 684 square kilometers, as compared to Houston's 3,355 square kilometers.
America has plenty of room to grow. Hopefully Americans will make wiser choices in the future regarding development, planning, zoning, and public transit than they have in the past. The days of unplanned development where everyone gets an individual house, two car garage, paved driveway, isolated neighborhood, nearby freeway, 100 acre strip shopping mall per developed neighborhood--need to come to an end. There are better ways to manage population growth. It is necessary for our cities and states to plan for a better future than we have done.
Here is an interesting chart of urban populations and their approximate land space. The US population is on par with many other urban areas, but our used land space far exceeds any other comparable city.
I believe these census projections are straight line projections of the change from the previous decade. I doubt any real thought is given to how various local industries will fare, or what the physical limits of the location may put on population growth.
I don't think so though. I looked at Illinois and it went from 11.4 million to 12.4 million in the 90's. At this rate it would be expected to be 15.9 million in 2030. They have it listed as 13.4.
Not sure why the census thinks that since Illinois has grown by 500,000 in the past 8 years, it's going to take 22 years to grow by another 500,000. Seems pretty low....our housing prices haven't tumbled and our economy is so diverse it's actually holding together much better than some others.
It's impossible to guess these numbers out over 20 years, who knows what's going to happen. Plus the census has always had a habit of underestimating northeast and midwest numbers. It's almost like they have an issue with the regions compared to the south or west.
fl going grow that big wow its great idea some places in fl like north west and south fl but south fl doing a huge realestae plus miami county has 3 over million plus i think cesus is wrong sometimes
I happen to think Florida will slow down significantly in the next several years. I think they will pass New York and 20 million within the next 5-10 years. But I think the population of the state in 2030 could be 4-5 million short of that projection.
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