Sacramento region grows at double state's rate, census shows
Published: Wednesday, Mar. 9, 2011 - 12:00 am | Page 1A
The Sacramento region grew twice as fast as the rest of the state during the last decade, adding 350,000 residents, an increase of 20 percent, according to Census 2010 figures released Tuesday.
Beneath those numbers are three key facts that will have profound effects on the region for the next decade:
• Most of the area's growth was driven by large increases in its Asian and Latino populations.
• Several cities added more residents than predicted, and a few added less, which will influence the amount of money each receives from federal and state governments.
• The region likely will pick up more representation in the state Legislature and U.S. House of Representatives.
Sacramento Region Growth Chart, The Sacramento Bee
The census is conducted every 10 years, primarily to determine how many representatives each state will send to Congress. It's also widely used for drawing political boundaries, appropriating funds and community planning.
As of April 1, 2010, the official population of the Sacramento region – El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento and Yolo counties – was 2.15 million. The state had 37.3 million residents on that date, an increase of 10 percent from 2000.
"The future of California is within the interior part of the state, the Inland Empire, the Central Valley," said William H. Frey, senior fellow and demographer with the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program, noting strong inland growth relative to the rest of the state. "Twenty years from now, that's where the action is going to be."
Locally, the most striking facts to emerge from Tuesday's census numbers were the huge population gains made by Latinos and Asians, who accounted for roughly two-thirds of the Sacramento region's growth in the last decade.
While the city of Sacramento has had a "majority minority" population for a decade, whites for the first time no longer make up a majority of residents in Sacramento County, and they barely constitute a majority (56 percent) regionwide.
About 32 percent of the region's population now identify as Asian or Latino, up from 24 percent in 2000.
Shift to Central Valley seen
Demographic experts noted that Sacramento grew faster than San Francisco and Los Angeles and hypothesized that Asians and Latinos are leaving those places for the Central Valley.
Beneath those numbers are three key facts that will have profound effects on the region for the next decade:
• Most of the area's growth was driven by large increases in its Asian and Latino populations.
• Several cities added more residents than predicted, and a few added less, which will influence the amount of money each receives from federal and state governments.
• The region likely will pick up more representation in the state Legislature and U.S. House of Representatives.
Sacramento Region Growth Chart, The Sacramento Bee
The census is conducted every 10 years, primarily to determine how many representatives each state will send to Congress. It's also widely used for drawing political boundaries, appropriating funds and community planning.
As of April 1, 2010, the official population of the Sacramento region – El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento and Yolo counties – was 2.15 million. The state had 37.3 million residents on that date, an increase of 10 percent from 2000.
"The future of California is within the interior part of the state, the Inland Empire, the Central Valley," said William H. Frey, senior fellow and demographer with the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program, noting strong inland growth relative to the rest of the state. "Twenty years from now, that's where the action is going to be."
Locally, the most striking facts to emerge from Tuesday's census numbers were the huge population gains made by Latinos and Asians, who accounted for roughly two-thirds of the Sacramento region's growth in the last decade.
While the city of Sacramento has had a "majority minority" population for a decade, whites for the first time no longer make up a majority of residents in Sacramento County, and they barely constitute a majority (56 percent) regionwide.
About 32 percent of the region's population now identify as Asian or Latino, up from 24 percent in 2000.
Shift to Central Valley seen
"In the mid-1990s, they were coming from smaller counties like Fresno, Merced and Butte where people couldn't find jobs," said Laura Leonelli, director of the Southeast Asian Assistance Center in Sacramento. More recently, "people migrate here from the Bay Area because housing is less expensive here."
Sacramento also received several thousand new Hmong refugees from Thailand during the middle of the decade, along with refugees from Burma and Bhutan, Leonelli said.
Larger families primarily explain the growth in the region's Latino population, though migration played a role, said Dr. David Leon, director of Chicano Studies at California State University, Sacramento.
"Latinos tend to have more children, and we have a larger grouping of individuals under age 19 – we are a young population," Leon said.
With so much money at stake for cities and counties, local officials are primarily interested in the raw census figures, rather than the demographics underlying them.
The population counts are used as a basis for determining how much money local governments receive through myriad federal programs. A recent report by the Brookings Institution estimated that each California resident counted by the census funnels about $1,700 a year to the state.
Nevertheless, officials in Lincoln and Elk Grove were subdued Tuesday, even though their towns enjoyed explosive growth over the last decade. The pervasive, ongoing budget problems soured the mood.
Lincoln grew faster than any other city in the state – 282 percent growth over 10 years. The town went from 11,205 residents in 2000 to 42,819 in 2010.
Jim Estep, city manager, said the city will get some additional funds tied to specific budget areas, such as transportation, but it won't do much for the city's general fund, which has had to rely on reserve dollars for each of the last three years.
"We've had primarily residential growth," Estep said. "We didn't get the corresponding retail/commercial (growth). The property tax dollars that came with that growth did not cover the cost of providing services to all those people."
Elk Grove grew faster than state demographers had predicted and now has 153,015 residents.
That's good news for federal housing funds and transportation, said city spokeswoman Christine Brainerd.
But, as with Lincoln, the city's aim is to parlay residential growth into new commercial and retail businesses, Brainerd said.
Tahoe struggles, shrinks
"Maybe we didn't get that good a counting of the population," said City Manager Henry Tingle. "I'm not seeing that we've dropped off."
South Lake Tahoe lost a greater proportion of residents than almost every other city in the state – a 9 percent decline. The city has been battling high unemployment, an economic downturn magnified by a higher cost of living, and the effects of long-term competition from California's gambling industry, said City Manager Tony O'Rourke.
"When you're predominantly a tourist destination, you're one of the first things to be cut," O'Rourke said.
From a political perspective, the new census numbers are good news for the Central Valley.
"There was faster growth in the inland areas, so we'll be looking at districts that are shifting to the east compared to what we saw 10 years ago," said Angelo Ancheta, a Bay Area member of the new citizens redistricting committee that will redraw legislative boundaries this year.
Tony Quinn, a former legislative staffer who has worked on redistricting and now co-edits the California Target Book, said the new numbers will probably mean that Democrats will lose a couple of safe seats along the coast. Those seats will be replaced by "marginal" seats – elections that could go either way – in the Central Valley.
Among the biggest surprises in Tuesday's figures was a reported 2.1 percent population decline in Citrus Heights. The city has 83,301 residents – about 5,000 less than prior estimates by the state Finance Department.
Demographic experts noted that Sacramento grew faster than San Francisco and Los Angeles and hypothesized that Asians and Latinos are leaving those places for the Central Valley."Maybe we didn't get that good a counting of the population," said City Manager Henry Tingle. "I'm not seeing that we've dropped off."
South Lake Tahoe lost a greater proportion of residents than almost every other city in the state – a 9 percent decline. The city has been battling high unemployment, an economic downturn magnified by a higher cost of living, and the effects of long-term competition from California's gambling industry, said City Manager Tony O'Rourke.
"When you're predominantly a tourist destination, you're one of the first things to be cut," O'Rourke said.
From a political perspective, the new census numbers are good news for the Central Valley.
"There was faster growth in the inland areas, so we'll be looking at districts that are shifting to the east compared to what we saw 10 years ago," said Angelo Ancheta, a Bay Area member of the new citizens redistricting committee that will redraw legislative boundaries this year.
Tony Quinn, a former legislative staffer who has worked on redistricting and now co-edits the California Target Book, said the new numbers will probably mean that Democrats will lose a couple of safe seats along the coast. Those seats will be replaced by "marginal" seats – elections that could go either way – in the Central Valley.
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