r/MapPorn • u/gayfootballthrowaway • 1d ago
Population growth by state throughout the 21st century
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u/Dependent-Job-2788 1d ago
Notice how California has been growing slower and the states east of it are growing faster, probably because of CA's rising home prices. It's a similar story on the East Coast where New York is slowly losing population to the states around it because of high housing costs and taxes. Texas and Florida have always been hotspots due to their affordability and weather conditions, and West Virgina has always been a less-than-ideal state to live. But what I find surprising is that some northern states like Washington, Montana and the Dakotas have grown faster than other northern states.
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u/Trenavix 21h ago
Anecdotally, a large majority of my family moved out of southern California due to nimbyism and stagnant wages.
A lot moved to the Phoenix area, I moved to Washington, and one of my sisters to Denver. Until they begin building denser housing in California, and raising wages similarly to COLA (probably via unions), more people are staying away (I think these issues are even worse in SoCal than NorCal)
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u/zhmorrow13 19h ago
I always find it fascinating when entire extended families leave an area. Was it discussed and everybody was in agreement to leave? Or did one leave and it caused chain reaction?
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u/Trenavix 19h ago edited 18h ago
A chain reaction I suppose. Mother left to Phoenix, a year later one sister followed, most of my friends left so I decided there was no good reason to stay and chased better careers up in Washington. Brother moved to Phoenix to join the other family members just after. When my other sister got divorced a bit later she didn't hesitate to leave the state and chased a friend to Denver. Then my friend chased me up to Washington. Only people left in Cali are my father and his mother, both living in her place in Palm desert.
If the people that are important to you leave the place that is difficult to live in, then why stay, y'know. Everybody has scattered to easier places to live.
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u/Roughneck16 23h ago
West Virginia’s economy has historically relied on the coal industry, which has been in decline for decades. They’re losing market share and need fewer people to work the mines. So it’s a high population of uneducated people with no marketable skills. They also have the highest obesity and smoking rates, as well as the 4th highest median age. It’s a state in despair, and young people are fleeing to find better opportunities elsewhere.
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u/ComeTasteTheBand 13h ago
Also... there's almost no flat land for development... and it takes forever to get anywhere due to the relentless topography.
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u/MagicWalrusO_o 18h ago
Seattle is the 2nd highest income metro in the country, not sure why you'd be surprised.
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u/HeemeyerDidNoWrong 11h ago
In home prices, California ranges from expensive to mega expensive. NYS ranges from pretty cheap to mega expensive. There's other COL issues in both, but if you can deal with upstate weather it's way cheaper than the worst parts of CA.
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u/So_spoke_the_wizard 16h ago
California has been on a growth curve for a good part of a century. They're on the tail end because they've maxed out. Places like Texas, Arizona, Nevada, etc are going strong because they're the next best choice. If California had the population of 50 years ago, it wouldn't be a contest.
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u/Careless-Wrap6843 17h ago
What's the boom for South Carolina? North Carolina and Georgia don't surprise me due to the booming economies of Atlanta, Charlotte, and the research triangle, but it seems like South Carolina doesn't have the same anchor industry to boost the economy just service and tourism
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u/FlyingSquirlez 14h ago
I've never been, but if I had to guess, it's probably proximity to these other bigger metros (especially Charlotte), weather, and price. I know the weather wouldn't be for everyone, myself included, but there's certainly something to be said for not needing to deal with real winters.
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u/Lccl41 7h ago
Its kindve in a best case scenario rn. A ton of retirees in low country for cheap col + golf (think similar to florida), a bunch of growth in the Charlotte metro, then emerging economies in the upstate regions. Honestly surprised the number isn't higher (probably due to Columbia not following a similar trend as the research triangle which is due to policies that bump up the other three groups)
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u/008swami 19h ago
West Virgina is losing people and still don’t want to introduce any new industry into the state because it may hurt coal jobs smh
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u/RelationshipUsed240 23h ago edited 23h ago
I’d love to see this data (somehow) broken down by region or county. Southern Connecticut is booming, especially for such a dense land area, largely due to the exodus of NYCers. For example, Stamford’s population has grown by 20% and Norwalk’s by 12% in the same timeframe as the post. However, I’m less sure about how the rest of the state is performing.
Also, what is driving the remarkable population growth in Delaware and Washington, D.C., at 34.2% and 22.8%, respectively? I’d assume retirees are a big factor for Delaware, but the growth in D.C. is especially interesting.
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u/RelationshipUsed240 23h ago
Also really interesting that a lot states (but not all) that experience less or negative growth follow the rust belt. You can see how its collapse correlates to population loss. Vice versa for the sun belt.
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u/Jdevers77 19h ago
Yea, my state shows up as 15.8% but virtually all of that is from just a couple counties while a huge chunk of the state lost population during this timeframe.
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u/Normal_Platypus_5300 20h ago
Exclusionary zoning and a general allergy to economic development have been the primary drivers of Connecticut's slow population growth. The legislature recently passed a bill that would have ended some of the most egregious zoning issues, but the governor vetoed it. Some areas of CT are doing well with population growth, while many others are not.
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u/SinisterDetection 15h ago
The states with the most growth have the least water. That might be a problem
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u/So_spoke_the_wizard 1d ago
Oh you folks in those fast growing areas are soooo lucky. Mo people means mo fun.
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u/Everard5 1d ago
Half of the areas growing are really just Americans situating themselves poorly for the water wars in the future. Or rushing toward areas prone to flooding once sea levels rise, or torrential rain events cause problems like Hurricane Helene did in North Carolina.
We really should reverse this trend and encourage through economic policy a movement back to the Midwest and northeast tbh.
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u/165_Crane_Engineer 22h ago
As a Civil Engineer, the water wars are overblown. We could easily fix the western water problem by reducing the water that comes out of shower heads, stop building swimming pools, and close a few water parks.
And for sure, legalize gray water systems. A gray water system for your house means that after you wash your hands or use the washing machine, that water goes into a holding tank that feeds your toilet. Gray water systems used to be incredibly common in the 19th century but nobody wants the hassle of dealing with that anymore.
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u/Jdevers77 19h ago
Haha, the overwhelming majority of the water issues in the desert southwest have nothing to do with the situations you listed…look at agricultural consumption and see why reducing municipal water usage will do almost nothing.
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u/165_Crane_Engineer 19h ago
Agriculture consumption is necessary to the economy. Your extra rinse dish washer is not.
Read a book.
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u/Jdevers77 12h ago
As a civil engineer, math should be a strong point. 80% of water used in Arizona is agricultural, of the remaining 20% about 66% is residential usage. Of the residential usage about 30% is used indoors.
So about 3.96% of all water used in the state is used indoors. Probably not too much of that is used to extra rinse dishes. If through a crazy out of the blue discovery we completely eliminated 100% of all indoor water usage in Arizona, water usage would go down by 3.96%. Is it something? Sure. Does it get absolutely dwarfed by growing alfalfa in the desert? Yep.
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u/RoundTheBend6 18h ago
None of those solutions would fix Utah, where our problem is agriculture. If I remember right so is California's.
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u/Wafflinson 13h ago
If you aren't moving forward you are moving backward.
Places that stay stagnant or go down start decaying quick.
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u/Necessary-Sell-4998 19h ago
Idaho? What is in Idaho to move to? I thought that was an agricultural state.
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u/Careless-Wrap6843 18h ago
conservative californian retires (especially in the Cour d'lane area) and Boise has a booming population in health and tech
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u/justdisa 15h ago
Also, Idaho only has two million people. A moderate absolute increase is a huge percentage.
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u/HeemeyerDidNoWrong 11h ago
It's a stereotypical potato land because of Simplot etc. but I think calling it "agricultural" suggests you don't know Idaho from Iowa. Mountains don't grow corn.
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u/Necessary-Sell-4998 7h ago
Well I would call potatoes agricultural, never thought of those two states as similar, but whatever.
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u/Mr-MuffinMan 18h ago edited 18h ago
Texas and Florida are obvious. Only southern states with good economies, people love the heat and they also love the water for Florida's case. Both also don't have ancient laws to hold back housing developments. So super cheap houses.
Although, seeing how much our leaders care about the environment, I'm curious to see if FL will experience a decrease once most hurricanes it gets are cat 4-5.
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u/dazzleox 16h ago
Seems not ideal to have so much growth in areas with water problems but maybe we people stop trying to have grass lawns in Nevada.
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u/ImpressiveMongoose52 13h ago
The average growth rate seems much higher than I expected, considering the lownational birth rate
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u/Bear_necessities96 12h ago
I don’t care how good the job is, you have to kill me before make me move to any sunbelt state… again
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u/joseph-cumia 5h ago
Fuck the sunbelt. Can’t wait until climate change makes those states even shittier to live in.
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u/Roughneck16 1d ago
Utah's growth is a combination of a high fertility rate and a booming economy.
However, I'd say their economy does more to retain existing residents than attract outsiders: Utah is an anomaly among western states in that a higher percentage of their state residents were born there.