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Daily Real Estate News | October 17, 2006 | Population Gains May Drive Growth from Coasts
The Census Bureau expects a surge in the country's population to 400 million from 300 million during the next 35 years, with immigrants accounting for most of the 100 million newcomers.

With about 86 people per square mile nationwide now, the U.S. would seem to have plenty of room for more. But this average hides disparities. As it grows, the population is increasingly concentrated in just a dozen states.

Heartland states like North Dakota, Ohio, Michigan, Kansas and Nebraska are either losing population or just staying even.

The Center for Environment and Population, a nonpartisan research group, calculates that more than half the population lives within 50 miles of the coasts. In the next decade, an additional 25 million people -- half the total population increase -- will join them there.

That concentration of population is likely to result in mega cities of 25 million or more as people head to them for jobs, demographers predict, raising new worries about the spread of infectious diseases and of terrorism in such dense areas.

Economists predict that market forces eventually will shift some of the U.S. population back to interior states where housing is cheaper, land is more abundant, social services are less stressed, and labor is cheaper for businesses.

There's some sign that's already happening. The foreign-born population of Tennessee is up 140 percent in the past five years as newcomers have begun to disperse beyond the historic gateways of New York, California, and Texas. Idaho and Utah grew by 10 percent in five years, twice the rate of the U.S. generally.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, June Kronholz (10/13/2006)