Sacramento Grows At Double State's Rate, Census Shows
By Phillip Reese, Loretta Kalb and Stephen Magagnini
preese@sacbee.com
Published: Wednesday, Mar. 9, 2011 - 12:00 am | Page 1A
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/03/09/346...at-double.html
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.
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.
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