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| -Land of the Free |
| Utah and Idaho See Population Booming |
| 2021-05-03 |
| [nwaonline, hat tip to the Dallas Morning News] Two Western states known for their rugged landscapes and wide-open spaces are bucking the trend of sluggish U.S. population growth, which dipped to the lowest level since the Great Depression, though different forces are powering the population booms in Utah and Idaho. In Utah, births largely drove the fastest growth in the country over the past decade. In neighboring Idaho, newcomers from California and other states helped it capture the second spot. For both states, which have long been lightly populated, the expansion comes with rapid economic growth, sparking concerns about strains on infrastructure, rising housing prices and a sharp increase in the cost of living that could threaten the area's quality of life in the long term. As the states tucked between the Rocky Mountains and the West Coast enter the next decade, leaders will have to wrestle with how to keep the growth rolling without letting costs spiral out of control for individual households or straining the natural resources that help draw people to the area. Perhaps they can avoid the California model? Maybe learn from it? The majority of Idaho's growth, about 60%, has been driven by people moving into the state between 2010 and 2019, according to data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey. One in five of those came from California, many of them retirees seeking lower housing prices and some of the most pristine wilderness in the continental U.S. Not as many from California as I guessed. The biggest growth driver in Utah, by contrast, is new births. As home to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a faith that puts a high value on family, Utah has long been among the states with the highest birth rate, largest households and youngest overall population: 31 years old compared with 38 in the U.S. as a whole in 2019. |
| Posted by:Bobby |
| #3 States need to institute some kind of electoral system so that one super-blue city can't drag the rest of a state into the blue column through graft and vote shenanigans. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2021-05-03 10:48 |
| #2 ...you need to prevent them from concentrating in small spots like cities. Set quotas as to how many refugees can settle in any one locale. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2021-05-03 08:57 |
| #1 Mrs. Warthog and I are political refugees from Kaliphornia in 2013 and love our adopted hometown and state of Idaho. Only 20% from CA? Not around where we live..most people who moved to our neighborhood are from there |
| Posted by: Warthog 2021-05-03 08:16 |