History > 2006 > USA > Demographics (II-VI)

Who Americans Are

and What They Do,

in Census Data

December 15, 2006
The New York Times
By SAM ROBERTS

Americans drank more than 23 gallons of bottled water per person in 2004 — about 10 times as much as in 1980. We consumed more than twice as much high fructose corn syrup per person as in 1980 and remained the fattest inhabitants of the planet, although Mexicans, Australians, Greeks, New Zealanders and Britons are not too far behind.

At the same time, Americans spent more of their lives than ever — about eight-and-a-half hours a day — watching television, using computers, listening to the radio, going to the movies or reading.

This eclectic portrait of the American people is drawn from the 1,376 tables in the Census Bureau’s 2007 Statistical Abstract of the United States, the annual feast for number crunchers that is being served up by the federal government today.

For the first time, the abstract quantifies same-sex sexual contacts (6 percent of men and 11.2 percent of women say they have had them) and learning disabilities (among population groups, American Indians were most likely to have been told that they have them).

The abstract reveals that the floor space in new private one-family homes has expanded to 2,227 square feet in 2005 from 1,905 square feet in 1990. Americans are getting fatter, but now drink more bottled water per person than beer.

Taller, too. More than 24 percent of Americans in their 70s are shorter than 5-foot-6. Only 10 percent of people in their 20s are.

More people are injured by wheelchairs than by lawnmowers, the abstract reports. Bicycles are involved in more accidents than any other consumer product, but beds rank a close second.

Most of the statistical tables, which come from a variety of government and other sources, are presented raw, without caveats; and because the abstract is so concrete, the statistics can suggest false precision. The table of consumer products involved in injuries does not explain, for example, that one reason nearly as many injuries involve beds as bicycles is that more people use beds.

With medical costs rising, more people said they pray for their health than invest in every form of alternative medicine or therapy combined, the abstract reports.

Adolescents and adults now spend, on average, more than 64 days a year watching television, 41 days listening to the radio and a little over a week using the Internet. Among adults, 97 million Internet users sought news online last year, 92 million bought a product, 91 million made a travel reservation, 16 million used a social or professional networking site and 13 million created a blog.

“The demand for information and entertainment seems almost insatiable,” said James P. Rutherfurd, executive vice president of Veronis Suhler Stevenson, the media investment firm whose research the Census Bureau cited.

Mr. Rutherfurd said time spent with such media increased to 3,543 hours last year from 3,340 hours in 2000, and is projected to rise to 3,620 hours in 2010. The time spent within each category varied, with less on broadcast television (down to 679 hours in 2005 from 793 hours in 2000) and on reading in general, and more using the Internet (up to 183 hours from 104 hours) and on cable and satellite television.

How does all that listening and watching influence the amount of time Americans spend alone? The census does not measure that, but since 2000 the number of hobby and athletic nonprofit associations has risen while the number of labor unions, fraternities and fan clubs has declined.

“The large master trend here is that over the last hundred years, technology has privatized our leisure time,” said Robert D. Putnam, a public policy professor at Harvard and author of “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.”

“The distinctive effect of technology has been to enable us to get entertainment and information while remaining entirely alone,” Mr. Putnam said. “That is from many points of view very efficient. I also think it’s fundamentally bad because the lack of social contact, the social isolation means that we don’t share information and values and outlook that we should.”

More Americans were born in 2004 than in any years except 1960 and 1990. Meanwhile, the national divorce rate, 3.7 divorces per 1,000 people, was the lowest since 1970. Among the states, Nevada still claims the highest divorce rate, which slipped to 6.4 per 1,000 in 2004 from 11.4 per 1,000 in 1990, just ahead of Arkansas’s rate.

From 2000 to 2005, the number of manufacturing jobs declined nearly 18 percent. Virtually every job category registered decreases except pharmaceuticals. Employment in textile mills fell by 42 percent. The job projected to grow the fastest by 2014 is home health aide.

One thing Americans produce more of is solid waste — 4.4 pounds per day, up from 3.7 pounds in 1980.

More than half of American households owned stocks and mutual funds in 2005. The 91 million individuals in those households had a median age of 51 and a median household income of $65,000.

That might help explain a shift in what college freshmen described as their primary personal objectives. In 1970, 79 percent said their goal was developing a meaningful philosophy of life. By 2005, 75 percent said their primary objective was to be financially very well off.

Among graduate students, 27 percent had at least one foreign-born parent. The number of foreign students from India enrolled in American colleges soared to 80,000 in 2005 from 10,000 in 1976.

As recently as 1980, only 12 percent of doctors were women; by 2004, 27 percent were.

In 1970, 33,000 men and 2,000 women earned professional degrees; in 2004, the numbers were 42,000 men and 41,000 women.

    Who Americans Are and What They Do, in Census Data, NYT, 15.11.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/15/us/15census.html

NYT        November 24, 2006

Cities Compete in Hipness Battle to Attract Young        NYT

25.11.2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/25/us/25young.html

Cities Compete in Hipness Battle

to Attract Young

November 25, 2006
The New York Times
By SHAILA DEWAN

ATLANTA, Nov. 24 — Some cities will do anything they can think of to keep young people from fleeing to a hipper town.

In Lansing, Mich., partiers can ease from bar to bar on the new Entertainment Express trolley, part of the state’s Cool Cities Initiative. In Portland, Ore., employees at an advertising firm can watch indie rock concerts at lunch and play “bump,” an abbreviated form of basketball, every afternoon.

And in Memphis, employers pay for recruits to be matched with hip young professionals in a sort of corporate Big Brothers program. A new biosciences research park is under construction — not in the suburbs, but downtown, just blocks from the nightlife of Beale Street.

These measures reflect a hard demographic reality: Baby boomers are retiring and the number of young adults is declining. By 2012, the work force will be losing more than two workers for every one it gains.

Cities have long competed over job growth, struggling to revive their downtowns and improve their image. But the latest population trends have forced them to fight for college-educated 25- to 34-year-olds, a demographic group increasingly viewed as the key to an economic future.

Mobile but not flighty, fresh but technologically savvy, “the young and restless,” as demographers call them, are at their most desirable age, particularly because their chances of relocating drop precipitously when they turn 35. Cities that do not attract them now will be hurting in a decade.

“It’s a zero-sum game,” said William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution, noting that one city’s gain can only be another’s loss. “These are rare and desirable people.”

They are people who, demographers say, are likely to choose a location before finding a job. They like downtown living, public transportation and plenty of entertainment options. They view diversity and tolerance as marks of sophistication.

The problem for cities, says Richard Florida, a public policy professor at George Mason University who has written about what he calls “the creative class,” is that those cities that already have a significant share of the young and restless are in the best position to attract more.

“There are a dozen places, at best, that are becoming magnets for these people,” Mr. Florida said.

That disparity was evident in a report released this week by the Metropolitan Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, which showed Atlanta leading the pack among big cities, while other metro areas, like Philadelphia, hemorrhaged young people from 1990 to 2000. (In this competition, surveys that make a city look good are a favorite opening salvo.)

In that decade, the Atlanta study said, the number of 25- to-34-year-olds with four-year college degrees in the city increased by 46 percent, placing Atlanta in the top five metropolitan areas in terms of growth rate, and a close second to San Francisco in terms of overall numbers. Charlotte, N.C., also outperformed Atlanta, with a growth rate of 57 percent, the second highest in the country after Las Vegas.

(Demographers point out that Las Vegas started with very small numbers and still ranks last among major cities when it comes to the percentage of its 25- to 34-year-olds with a college degree.)

Atlanta did particularly well with young, educated blacks — a boon for employers seeking to diversify their ranks. The city’s report zeroed in on people like Tiffany Patterson, 27, who on a recent Thursday night was hanging out at Verve, the sleek new Midtown bar and restaurant that is one of her marketing clients.

The place was thrumming with young African-Americans in leather jackets, stilettos or pinstripe suits — the kind of vibe, said Ms. Patterson, who is from Dallas, that made her stay in Atlanta after college.

“If I go home, women my age are looking for a husband,” she said. “They have a cubicle job.”

In Atlanta, Ms. Patterson said, she can afford a new town house. A few years ago, she decided to leave her financial sector job and start her own business as a marketing consultant.

“I thought, I can break out and do it myself,” she said. “It really is the city of the fearless.”

The recent study, based on census figures and conducted by Joe Cortright of Impresa Consulting in Portland and Carol Coletta, president and chief executive of CEOs for Cities, a nonprofit organization in Chicago, showed that Atlanta won its net gain in educated young people by luring them from New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston.

“What we’re seeing is the jury of the most skeptical age group in America has looked at Atlanta’s character and likes it,” Sam A. Williams, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, said.

But Mr. Williams acknowledged the difficulty of replicating that phenomenon on purpose.

Had the chamber tried to advertise Atlanta, he said, “we might have screwed it up —because they’re much more trusting of their own network than they are of any marketing campaign.”

“You can’t fake it here,” he said. “You either do it or you don’t.”

In addition to Atlanta, the biggest gainers in market share of the young and restless were San Francisco; Denver; Portland; and Austin, Tex. The biggest losers included Washington, Philadelphia, New York and Los Angeles.

But some of the losing cities have been trying hard to forestall their losses, in part by focusing on talented workers who want a certain lifestyle instead of big employers that have traditionally been interested in tax credits and infrastructure.

Steven W. Pedigo, the research director for the Greater Washington Initiative, a regional economic group, said the numbers there had begun to turn around. Stephanie Naidoff, Philadelphia’s director of commerce, said a major effort to draw college students off campus with things like internships and concert tickets was paying off, increasing the city’s graduate retention numbers.

Studies like Atlanta’s are common these days. From Milwaukee to Tampa Bay, consultants have been hired to score such nebulous indexes as “social capital,” “after hours” and “vitality.” Relocation videos have begun to feature dreadlocks and mosh pits instead of sunsets and duck ponds. In the governor’s race in Michigan this fall, the candidates repeatedly sparred over how best to combat “brain drain.”

But determining exactly what works is not easy. In Atlanta, focus group participants liked the low cost of living, an airport hub that allowed easy travel and what they perceived as a diverse and open culture.

And Atlanta has some strong advantages, of course. There are some 45 colleges and universities in the metro area. The Cartoon Network is based here, as are scores of companies in the technology and entertainment sectors. The music industry is another draw for the creative class. And the city has large international and gay populations, considered strong indicators for popularity with the young and restless.

“Atlanta’s just one of those mixes,” said T. J. Ashiru, 30, a Nigerian who chose Atlanta over New York for college shortly after the 1996 Olympics were held here, and stayed to begin his career in finance. “The Olympics was basically the catalyst for what Atlanta became.”

In some cases, cities have done well in the competition without even overtly trying. Charlotte has done well without either a major university or the kind of strong identity — like Austin’s position as a live music capital — that helps put cities on the young-and-restless map.

At the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce, Tony Crumbley, the vice president for research, said the city and state had done a lot of things right without realizing it, like establishing liberal banking laws that made Charlotte a financial capital, and redeveloping downtown in the 1980s.

“Another thing,” Mr. Crumbley said, “there are more Frisbee golf courses in this area than any other place in the country.”

Still, what works in one city will not work in others, Mr. Cortright said, and not all young people are looking for the same things. He cites Portland’s bike paths, which many point to as an amenity that has helped the city attract young people.

“I think that confuses a result with a cause,” Mr. Cortright said. Portland happened to have a group who wanted concessions for cyclists and was able to get them, he said.

“The real issue was, is your city open to a set of ideas from young people, and their wish to realize their dream or objective in your city,” he said. “You could go out and build bike paths, but if that’s not what your young people want, it’s not going to work.”

Brenda Goodman contributed reporting.

    Cities Compete in Hipness Battle to Attract Young, NYT, 25.11.2006,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/25/us/25young.html

A 300 Millionth American.

Don’t Ask Who.

October 18, 2006
The New York Times
By SAM ROBERTS

Yesterday was the birthday of the daredevil Evel Knievel, the actress Margot Kidder and the columnist Jimmy Breslin, and also of Emanuel Plata in Queens, Zoë Emille Hudson in Manhattan, Kiyah Lanaé Boyd in Atlanta and any number of other newborns who just may be the 300 millionth American.

The babies were born at or about 7:46 a.m. Eastern time, when, the Census Bureau estimates, the nation’s population reached that milestone.

Theoretically, the 300 millionth American may have arrived at an airport from overseas at that hour, or been smuggled before dawn across an unguarded section of the Southwestern border. Still, hospital publicists and proud new parents were left to stake their claims to the title.

In Queens, the nation’s most diverse county, Emanuel Plata weighed in at 6 pounds 15 ounces at Elmhurst Hospital Center, where he was all but indistinguishable from the 4,400 other infants born there each year except for a tiny white cap, provided by hospital officials, that proclaimed in blue letters, “America’s 300 millionth baby.”

His mother, Gricelda Plata, 22, was draped in an oversized T-shirt that announced, “I delivered America’s 300 millionth baby.” She and the boy’s father, Armando Jimenez, 25, a cook who works in Forest Hills, are immigrants from Puebla, Mexico, and live in East New York, Brooklyn.

Asked by reporters whether he considered himself lucky to be the father of a celebrity, Mr. Jimenez replied: “My baby is healthy. My wife is fine. What more luck do I want?”

At New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Hospital in Manhattan, Zoë Hudson was born, the daughter of native New Yorkers. Zoë’s father, Garvin, 29, an investment banker, is the son of a couple from Jamaica, and her mother, Maria Diaz, 28, a teacher in Harlem, is of Puerto Rican and Dominican heritage.

“We’re Hispanic, and we celebrate so many different holidays,” said Zoë’s maternal grandmother, Rosemary Garcia, “but also the American holidays. But how do you celebrate being the 300 millionth American born in a family of Hispanics, Jamaicans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans? It’s just so Americanized.”

Informed that Elmhurst Hospital Center was also laying claim to having the 300 millionth American, Dr. Herbert Pardes, the president of New York-Presbyterian, said, “We’ll get them together for a play date.”

Just as Life magazine did in 1967 with the 200 millionth American, local and national news outlets nominated their own 300 millionth. In Atlanta, Kiyah Boyd of Mableton, Ga., was welcomed by a crew from “Good Morning America.” Kiyah’s father, Kristopher Boyd, 28, is in the Navy and had been stationed in Bahrain, but came home on leave to join his wife, Keisha, also 28, whom he met in the service. Both are American-born.

In San Francisco, Kevin McCormack, a spokesman for California Pacific Medical Center, described an Asian-American baby born at 4:42 a.m. local time as in the running. “Well, we don’t know if it’s the 300 millionth,” Mr. McCormack acknowledged, “but we know it’s close, within four minutes.”

At the Census Bureau headquarters in Suitland, Md., a crowd broke into cheers at 7:46 when the digital population clock — calculating that an American is born every 7 seconds, one dies every 13 seconds and the nation gains an immigrant from abroad every 31 seconds — flashed 300,000,000.

The United States is now one of three countries with more than 300 million people, ranking behind China and India. (The Soviet Union had nearly 300 million before it dissolved.) In contrast to most other industrialized nations, America has a population that is still growing, propelled by immigration and higher fertility rates.

Statistically, demographers generally agreed, the person who pushed the national population to 300 million was most likely a Hispanic boy in the Southwest.

“I’m still going with the Latino baby boy in Los Angeles,” said William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution. “This is a symbol of where we’re heading: the new American melting pot.”

Strictly speaking, of course, the 300 millionth American arrived long ago. According to Carl Haub, a senior demographer with the nonprofit Population Reference Bureau, since 1790 as many as 550 million people have lived in the United States.

Michelle O’Donnell and Kai Ma contributed reporting from New York, Brenda Goodman from Atlanta and Carolyn Marshall from San Francisco.

    A 300 Millionth American. Don’t Ask Who., NYT, 18.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/18/us/18population.html

U.S. Population Reaches 300 Million

October 17, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:33 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Maybe there will be a bigger party when the population hits 400 million. Save the date: 2043. America's official population passed the 300 million mark Tuesday, fueled by a growing number of immigrants and their children.

The moment, recorded at 7:46 a.m. EDT, passed with little fanfare, perhaps dampened by a divisive debate over illegal immigration and the fact that many experts think the population had already hit the 300 million mark months ago.

There were no fireworks or government-sponsored celebrations. Just a written statement from President Bush near the end of the work day, welcoming the milestone as ''further proof that the American Dream remains as bright and hopeful as ever.''

''It's a couple of weeks before an election when illegal immigration is a high-profile issue, and they don't want to make a big deal out of it,'' said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

It's been 39 years since the U.S. population reached 200 million. Since then, about 55 percent of the growth has come from immigrants, their children and their grandchildren, according to a recent report by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research organization.

In other words, if the U.S. had cut off all immigration since 1967, the population would be about 245 million -- and a lot less diverse, said Jeffrey Passel, a senior demographer at the center.

''We've had much more Asian and Latino immigration than white and black,'' said Passel, the study's author. ''That has led to the racial and ethnic diversity that we have today.''

When the population hit 200 million in 1967, more than 80 percent of Americans were white and less than 5 percent were Hispanic. Less than 1 percent were Asian.

Today, Hispanics make up nearly 15 percent of the population and Asians about 5 percent. White non-Hispanics account for about 67 percent, blacks a little more than 13 percent.

By 2043, white non-Hispanics are expected to be a little more than half. That's the year the population is projected to hit 400 million, though the numbers could change significantly depending on immigration and birth rates.

In 1967, President Johnson held a news conference at the Commerce Department to mark the 200 million milestone. He hailed the country's past and talked about the challenges ahead. Life magazine dispatched a cadre of photographers to find a baby born at the exact moment, anointing a boy born in Atlanta as the 200 millionth American.

This year, there's a good chance the 300 millionth American walked across the border from Mexico months ago.

Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, himself an immigrant from Cuba, said the Bush administration isn't playing down the milestone, though no public events were scheduled.

''I would hate to think that we are going to be low key about this,'' said Gutierrez, whose department oversees the Census Bureau. ''I would hope that we make a big deal about it.''

Gutierrez said America's growing population is good for the economy. He noted that Japan and some European countries expect to lose population in the next few decades, raising concerns that there won't be enough young people entering the work force to support aging populations.

''This is one more area where we seem to have an advantage,'' Gutierrez said. ''We should all feel good about reaching this milestone.''

The U.S. adds about 2.8 million people a year, a growth rate of less than 1 percent.

The Census Bureau counts the population every 10 years. In between, it uses administrative records and surveys to estimate monthly averages for births, deaths and net immigration. The bureau has a ''population clock'' that estimates a birth every seven seconds, a death every 13 seconds and a new immigrant every 31 seconds. Add it together and you get one new American every 11 seconds.

The U.S. population trails only China and India.

It's not easy estimating the exact number of people in a country the size of the United States. Passel said the Census Bureau has improved its population estimates in the past few years, but it still undercounts illegal immigrants.

There are an estimated 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. Experts differ on the specifics, but many estimate that more than 1 million of them don't show up in census figures.

''The census clearly misses people,'' said Passel, a former Census Bureau employee who used to help estimate the undercount. ''Having said that, when they crossed 200 million, they were missing about 5 million people. We think the 2000 census missed a lot less than 5 million people.''

------

On The Net:

Census Bureau population clock: http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html

    U.S. Population Reaches 300 Million, NYT, 17.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-300-Million-Milestone.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Old New Yorkers, Newer Ones, and a Line Etched by a Day of Disaster

September 7, 2006
The New York Times
By MICHAEL BRICK

Five years ago, on Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists crashed two airliners into the World Trade Center. Downtown smelled like Coke cans and hair on fire. It was televised live.

In New York City, 2,749 people were killed. About eight million remained. Since that day, the numbers have changed.

The population grew by more than 134,000 from 2000 to 2005, the city’s latest Planning Department calculations show. In that time, 645,416 babies were born and 304,773 people died. A half-million more people came from other countries than departed for them, and 800,000 more people left for the 50 states than came wide-eyed from them.

The meaning in the math is that today a great many New Yorkers lack firsthand knowledge of the city’s critical modern moment.

Five years on, New York is a city of newcomers and survivors. And between them runs a line. The line makes for no conflict, no discernible tension; it works a quieter breach.

Borne of the routine comings and goings of urban life, of births and deaths, the line divides views of a singular moment. Across the line, consummately familiar events can appear contorted.

On one side, the newcomer side, a man seeks accounts of that day; on the other side a man withholds his account. On the newcomer side, a woman visits the absent towers to feel some connection; on the other side a woman feels connected, and then some.

On the side of those who lived in New York, you can share a sense of trauma both layered and ill-defined.

“It’s like someone who has been in a war zone,” said William Stockbridge, 50, a finance executive who was working downtown during the attack. “It’s different.”

On the other side, you can feel like the new boyfriend at your girlfriend’s family reunion the year somebody died — somebody young, somebody you never met.

“You feel like you’re on the outside,” said Matthew Molnar, 26, a waiter in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, who lived in Middlesex County, N.J., in 2001. “You feel like you missed out on a little bit of history.”

Newcomers and survivors: those terms ring harsh and blunt only because the line is so often unspoken. It runs soundless and invisible down Broadway from Harlem over the Williamsburg Bridge out to Coney Island and to Fresh Kills, up past the airports across the Grand Concourse into Yankee Stadium, through the bleachers where you can’t drink beer anymore and up out of the park into the nighttime sky.

The line flashes into view on the city streets for moments at a time. When jet fighters buzz the skyscrapers for Fleet Week, some of the people below — the ones who were here on Sept. 11 — flinch. More frequently, though, the line operates beneath the surface of conversations, of interactions, of transactions, of life. The line controls small things, controls the way people react to the phrase “and then Sept. 11 happened,” as though a date on the calendar could “happen.”

The line’s contours emerge in conversations. Ask about the attack, and people will describe a sense of ownership.

“You either experienced it firsthand,” said Amanda Spielman, 30, a graphic designer from Jackson Heights, Queens, who was in the city, “or you didn’t.”

Others describe that sense differently, but draw the line in the same place.

“I think for the people that seen it on TV, it is more painful than for the people who saw it here,” said Paolo Gonzalez, 29, who manages a parking lot under the Brooklyn Bridge and who saw the attack. “For the other people it was real. If you was here, when the buildings came down the only thing you were thinking was, ‘Run.’ ”

Across the line, the new arrivals recognize that sense of ownership.

“I’ve been told that I just don’t get it and that I could never understand what it was like to be there in New York on Sept. 11,” said Laura Bassett, 27, who moved to the city from North Carolina after 2001. “I hate that five years later, people still debate which bystander is allowed to be more upset, the New Yorker or the American.”

The line emerges perhaps most powerfully around the fallen towers, 2.06 acres of concrete known as ground zero. Because of the line, the site is a paradox, an emotional contradiction, a mass grave and a tourist attraction.

Some people feel so strongly about the place they cannot agree on an arrangement for listing the names of the dead; others feel so strongly about the place that they make sure to visit between Radio City Music Hall and the Statue of Liberty. Between those emotional poles is a middle ground, and the line runs through its center.

“People who moved to New York, everyone wanted to go down and see it,” said Dede Minor, 51, a real estate broker who was in her office in Midtown on the day of the attack. “For New Yorkers, it was too real.”

Jose Martias, 57, a construction worker who was drinking coffee near the East River when the attack began, said he knew why the newcomers visit the site.

“They don’t understand it so they go down there to see the hole,” Mr. Martias said. “It’s an attraction to them, like going to the circus.”

But across the line there is genuine emotional curiosity, a feeling that people in less cynical times used to call empathy.

“I’d didn’t think I’d be that affected,” said Leah Hamilton, 24, a logistics consultant who moved to Manhattan from Washington State last year. “But when I went to ground zero, it was the first time I’ve felt an emotional reaction like that to something I wasn’t a part of. You feel the energy and you could feel the sadness.”

The line can reach into the future, forging perceptions of New York and its destiny. Some new arrivals speak of the attack as a reason to come to the city.

“We felt like there was a lot of energy here,” said Meg Glasser, 26, a student who moved to the East Village from Boston this year. “We wanted to be a part of it in some way.”

But across the line, that sense of energy is tempered by standards for comparison.

“I know people who have been here a year or two, and they find New York fantastic,” said Father Bernard, 67, a Roman Catholic monk who was born in Brooklyn and who goes by only that name. “They’re right, but they didn’t know the New York before.”

The line reaches into the past as well, dividing memories. Each generation tells the next where they were when the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, when the Kennedys and Martin Luther King were killed or when a space shuttle exploded, but a major act of destruction in a major American city creates more firsthand accounts.

Psychological studies suggest those accounts have played a role in drawing the line. After the attack, a group of academic researchers interviewed 1,500 people, including 550 in New York City, to gauge memories of detail, said Elizabeth Phelps, a professor of psychology and neural science at New York University. Proximity to Lower Manhattan during the attack, Dr. Phelps said, “increases your confidence in your memories, and your accuracy as well.”

In a separate study, the researchers measured activity in parts of the brain connected to memory. With verbal cues, subjects were asked to conjure visions of the terror attack and of personal events from the summer of 2001. Only half registered a difference in neural activity.

“Those who did show a difference were, on average, in Washington Square Park,” Dr. Phelps said. “Those who didn’t were, on average, in Midtown.”

Among those who have come to the city since 2001, the line dividing memories is undisputed.

“I had been there as a tourist to the World Trade Center, so I have memories,” said Marielle Solan, 22, a photographer who moved to the city from Delaware this year. “But obviously I can’t have any sense of what it was like. Every Sept, 11, you get a sense of fear and depression, but in terms of actual visceral reactions, I don’t really have that.”

The new arrivals have found a conspicuous void of shared memory.

“I’m amazed because it was such a big event, and people never mention it,” said Deenah Vollmer, 20, who moved to the city last year. “When you do mention it, everyone has these crazy intense stories.”

Across the line, many of those who lived in the city hold their memories close.

“The people I already knew know my stories from that day, so there’s no need to repeat them,” said Ms. Spielman, the graphic designer. “The new people I’ve met don’t ask me. It’s not something I bring up.”

But each year the calendar brings it up. Alexandria Lambert, 28, who works as an administrative assistant, sees the line run through the center of her office. Each year, a co-worker who witnessed the attack asks for the day off, and each year a boss who did not declines the request.

“His point of view is, ‘Don’t let it get you down,’ ” Ms. Lambert said, “but she just doesn’t want to be here.”

Reporting for this article was contributed by Sarah Garland, Kate Hammer, Colin Moynihan and Conrad Mulcahy.

    Old New Yorkers, Newer Ones, and a Line Etched by a Day of Disaster, NYT, 7.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/07/nyregion/07voices.html

Study: Diversity rises in suburbs

Updated 8/3/2006 11:08 PM ET
USA Today
By Haya El Nasser

Suburban counties, once the bastion of white America, are becoming multiethnic tapestries, and white populations are inching up in some urban areas after big losses in the 1990s, according to new Census estimates out Friday.

"Suburbs and especially fast-growing outer suburbs are not just attracting whites anymore," says William Frey, demographer at the Brookings Institution, a think tank. "All minority groups are coming. They're a magnet for blacks as well as Hispanics and Asians."

The changes are dramatic in the South. About 74% of the growth in the U.S. black population happened there from 2000 to 2005. The region also generated about 71% of the national growth in whites, 42% of the Hispanic growth and 27% of the Asian growth.

"Things are becoming much more multicultural in areas that weren't before," says Frey, who analyzed county population estimates for July 1, 2005. "The South's growth is probably more balanced than other regions in racial and ethnic contributions."

Atlanta suburbs in counties such as Gwinnett, Clayton and Cobb had some of the largest gains among blacks, more evidence that the return black migration to the South that began in the 1990s continues.

Most suburban growth across the USA was buoyed significantly by Hispanics and Asians.

Some cities and close-in suburbs that lost whites throughout the 1990s gained or at least stemmed their losses. In New York City, Manhattan lost 18,000 non-Hispanic whites in the 1990s but gained 51,000 from 2000 to 2005. Queens lost 175,000 whites in the '90s but has lost less than a third of that so far this decade. Fast-gentrifying Brooklyn lost 43,000 whites in the '90s but has added more than 5,000 since 2000.

"Not only are young people going to Manhattan because it's an exciting place to be, but also empty nesters are going," says James Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University in New Jersey. "But prices have been bid up so high in Manhattan that it has spilled over to Jersey City, Brooklyn and Queens."

A study earlier this year by CEOs for Cities, a Chicago-based network of urban leaders, found that adults ages 25 to 34 are 30% more likely to live within 3 miles of central business districts.

"It's part of the continuing story of the comeback of cities," says Carol Coletta, president of the group. "Diversification is taking place, and that's generally good news for everyone. When poor people are isolated or racial minorities are isolated, it's not good for the economy."

Other trends:

•Almost half of the growth among whites took place in small metropolitan areas. Blacks, Hispanics and Asians gravitated more toward large metropolitan areas.

•More than a third of Asian growth took place in large metro areas in the West.

•Hispanics account for 71% of the Northeast's population gains this decade.

    Study: Diversity rises in suburbs, UT, 3.8.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2006-08-03-suburbs-diversity_x.htm

A nation of 300 million

Updated 7/5/2006 12:45 AM ET
USA TODAY
By Haya El Nasser

The USA is closing in on a milestone that seemed unthinkable 25 years ago. Sometime in mid-October, we will become a nation of 300 million Americans.

We will then embark on a relatively quick journey to 400 million. Target date: around 2040.

How did this young country get so big so quickly? Immigration, longevity, a relatively high birth rate and economic stability all have propelled the phenomenal growth. The nation has added 100 million people since 1967 to become the world's third-most populous country after China and India. It's growing faster than any other industrialized nation.

The biggest driver of growth is immigration — legal and illegal. About 53% of the 100 million extra Americans are recent immigrants or their descendants, according to Jeffrey Passel, demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center. Without them, the USA would have about 250 million people today.

The newcomers have transformed an overwhelmingly white population of largely European descent into a multicultural society that reflects every continent on the globe. Some arrived as war refugees. Most came in search of better opportunities in a country that has strong civil rights and a stable economy. Once here, they had babies, which helped the nation maintain a birthrate that is higher than that of Europe and Japan.

For a country that has equated growth with prosperity throughout much of its history, 300 million is prompting soul-searching about everything from the consumption of natural resources and sprawl to border control and traffic jams. The Census Bureau's population clock will hit the momentous number barely a month before midterm elections in which illegal immigration is a volatile issue.

Half of Americans say their communities have grown a lot in the past five years, but more than three-fourths say growth is a minor problem or no problem where they live, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken in early June. Though about a third say growth will become a major issue in their communities, more than half say it will be a major problem for the country as a whole. Almost half attribute population growth to immigrants.

Lee Atkinson, 57, lives in Chesapeake, a city in Virginia's fast-growing Tidewater area near Norfolk and Virginia Beach. "The increase in people is creating an employment problem and increased demand for social services, and I'm not sure that the financial support is there," says Atkinson, owner of an occupational safety consulting company.

He worries that services and infrastructure are not keeping pace with population growth. "Nobody wants to build new highways. Nobody wants to maintain the ones we've got. We don't want to spend any money on it. More people are going to place more demands."

Oddly, most Americans don't have a clue how many people actually live in the USA or how many are expected to. Twenty-nine percent guessed the population at 200 million or less, and 19% put it at 1 billion or more. Twelve percent came within 50 million of guessing correctly.

There might be more awareness by year's end. Hoopla is mounting around the 300 million event. Some baby-food marketers plan to use it in their marketing campaigns. The Census Bureau and leading demographers are fielding calls from media worldwide.

"The world is watching," says William Frey, demographer at the Brookings Institution. He has gotten calls from British broadcasters asking which hospital the 300 millionth American will be born in and from parenting magazines trying to pinpoint the exact day of the event (Frey's estimate is Oct. 17).

Several publications want to know what race and ethnicity No. 300 million is likely to be. There is no way to pinpoint that person because the number is an estimate, not an exact accounting of the population. It could be a newborn. It could be an immigrant entering the country. Speculation abounds.

The USA is alone among industrialized nations in its relatively rapid population increase. The populations in Japan and Russia are expected to shrink almost one-fourth by 2050. Germany, Italy and most European nations are not making enough babies to keep their populations from sliding.

"There's a fertility malaise in (other) industrialized countries," says Carl Haub, senior demographer at the non-profit Population Reference Bureau. "Europe and Japan and South Korea and Taiwan are getting desperate."

Women have to give birth to an average 2.1 babies to offset deaths and keep the population even. The birthrate in Western Europe is 1.6. It's even lower — 1.4 — in Italy, Spain and other southern European countries. France, which has done more to accommodate the needs of working mothers, has the highest rate at 1.9, Haub says.

Germany, where leaving children in day care is not socially embraced, is proposing a family allowance that would pay mothers 67% of their partner's net income up to 1,800 euros ($2,304) a month for up to a year after childbirth.

The USA would hardly grow in the next 50 years except for Hispanic immigrants, who have a higher birthrate than non-Hispanic whites. White women, who give birth to 56% of the children born here, have an average 1.85 babies. Blacks average about two and Asians 1.9. Hispanics have 2.8. The overall birthrate is slightly above two — just below replacement levels.

When the U.S. population was at 200 million in 1967, women had an average of three children and the government expected the population to hit 300 million as early as 1990. By the 1980s, the birthrate had tumbled and government estimates projected that the country wouldn't get there until the 2020s. The flow of immigrants turned those projections on their heads.

Why would a country want more babies? For industrialized nations, numbers mean economic and cultural power. To remain globally competitive, countries need workers. In addition to injecting innovation in the workplace, the young help meet the needs of the elderly through the taxes they pay, Haub says.

The nation is getting older as the oldest boomers turn 60 this year. People also are living longer. Since 1970, life expectancy at birth jumped about seven years to a record 77.9 years. The share of the population age 65 or older grew from 9.9% to 12.4%. The median age is up from 28.1 to 36.2 years.

Some experts argue that more people cause more problems. Brian Dixon, director of government relations for Population Connection, a grass-roots advocacy group formerly called Zero Population Growth, says the challenges for nations facing little growth or actual declines aren't as difficult as those confronting the USA.

"Figuring out a pension system has to be easier than dealing with the health crisis of polluted air or how we're going to address increases in childhood asthma," he says. "Is there going to be enough open space, enough parkland, enough housing, enough jobs? What does it mean for our quality of life?"

Immigration should not be viewed as a domestic issue, Dixon says. "Immigration is really foreign policy," he says. "What can the U.S. do to ease problems in the developing world that drive people to leave?" The goal, he says, should be to keep people in their native lands.

The United States all but shut its door to immigrants in the 1920s after a record wave of immigration that lasted about 30 years. The Depression and World War II followed. Then baby boomers were born from 1946 to 1964, arriving in a mostly white country that had very few recent immigrants.

Everything changed when President Johnson signed the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965. The policy opened U.S. shores to the Third World. "That was probably the single most important demographic event of the last 50 years," Haub says.

The act had less to do with attracting more immigrants than keeping immigration laws in line with the civil rights movement. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were designed to stop racial and ethnic discrimination —— inherent in the country's past immigration laws, which set quotas based on national origins. After 1965, race, religion, color and national origin were disregarded.

The end of the Vietnam War brought Asian refugees. In 1964, the United States ended the bracero program, which had allowed Mexican farmworkers to come to this nation to work and return home. By 1970, the Mexican economy had nosedived and more Mexicans came to stay — many illegally. Without the influx, Passel says, diversity would never have reached current levels: 15% Hispanic and 5% Asian compared with 5% Hispanic and 1% Asian in 1970.

"Our growth, were it not for that, would be barely enough to keep population constant," says Joel Darmstadter, senior fellow at Resources for the Future, a non-partisan research group that specializes in natural resources and the environment. His research shows that prosperity puts more pressure on natural resources than sheer population growth.

"It's not immigrants who are going to buy those expensive houses in Phoenix or Tucson," Darmstadter says. "To view immigration as the heavy in the problems of water use or energy use is a copout."

It's difficult to imagine the country running out of space when there is open desert as far as the eye can see 30 minutes south or west of Phoenix.

The town of Maricopa, Ariz., is a dot in the breathtaking expanse of the Sonoran Desert. Not long ago, farmer Kelly Anderson, its first mayor, could rumble down state Highway 347 in his tractor, meet a buddy and hang out in the middle of the two-lane road for a chat and a beer without disrupting traffic.

Now, growth is galloping toward it across hundreds of square miles of arid soil, cotton fields and cattle feed lots. Maricopa's population has quadrupled since 2000 to more than 17,000. It's expected to reach 116,000 —Phoenix was that size in the early 1950s — by 2010 and top 300,000 by 2025.

Non-native palm trees appear on the horizon in every direction, a telltale sign of approaching subdivisions. Tanker trucks douse construction sites with water to dampen dust stirred up by bulldozers, a reminder of the natural resources gobbled up by growth.

What's happening in once-remote Maricopa is replicated across the country. The USA is getting more crowded — 83 persons per square mile in 2004 vs. 70.3 in 1990 — but it's far less dense than other nations such as France (287), China (361), Germany (609) and Japan (835). Arizona is getting denser: 50.5 in 2004 vs. 32.3 in 1990. That's still far less than other parts of the country, including California (230), Pennsylvania (277) and New Jersey (1,173).

Some regions haven't been touched by the nation's population surge. Parts of states in the Great Plains have suffered population losses and bemoan the exodus of their young. Nebraska's density (22.7) and North Dakota's (9.2) have barely budged this decade.

"We're still using a fraction of the national space," says Robert Lang, director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech. "By 2050, the settled space will be more developed. A lot of places are literally out of land. ... They're having to go up rather than out, but there'll still be the Great Plains and vast stretches of the Intermountain West."

Fueled by a sunny climate, plentiful land and cheaper housing, fast and furious growth has been a fact of life around Phoenix for decades.

Maricopa, Casa Grande, Goodyear, Buckeye and other small towns on the edge of the metro area are going through the same kind of boom that transformed closer-in suburbs such as Chandler and Glendale from specks on the map in 1970 to cities whose populations top 200,000 today.

"I've lived in northeast Pennsylvania, and declining growth is worse than rapid growth," says Jack Tomasik, planning director for the Central Arizona Association of Governments. "But rapid growth definitely has its drawbacks."

The boomtowns hope to create the infrastructure needed to sustain growth, something they've seen some bigger neighbors struggle with. That's why Buckeye, Goodyear, Litchfield Park and Avondale joined forces and put up money to speed the widening of I-10, the first time Arizona communities have done such a thing, Buckeye Mayor Bobby Bryant says. They're drafting plans to lure jobs and businesses, not just housing, a delicate balance because retail and employers won't come until enough people live there.

"You need to accept growth," Casa Grande Mayor Charles Walton says. "It's coming whether you want it or not."

Yet a future of whirlwind growth nags at him. He worries that it ultimately will harm the quality of life of future generations.

"I think I can tolerate it in my lifetime," he says, "but I feel very sorry for my grandchildren."

    A nation of 300 million, UT, 5.7.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-04-us-population_x.htm

America's population to hit 300 million this fall

Updated 6/25/2006 9:55 PM ET
AP
USA Today

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. population is on target to hit 300 million this fall and it's a good bet the milestone baby — or immigrant — will be Hispanic.

No one will know for sure because the date and time will be just an estimate.

But Latinos — immigrants and those born in this country — are driving the population growth. They accounted for almost half the increase last year, more than any other ethnic or racial group. White non-Hispanics, who make up about two-thirds of the population, accounted for less than one-fifth of the increase.

Phil Shawe sees the impact at his company, Translations.com. The New York-based business started in 1992, when it mainly helped U.S. companies translate documents for work done overseas. Today, the company's domestic business is booming on projects such as helping a pharmacy print prescription labels in up to five languages or providing over-the-phone translation services for tax preparers.

"It's been a huge growth area for our business," said Shawe, the president and chief executive. "Not only is the Hispanic market growing faster than the average, but it is also growing in purchasing power."

When the population reached 200 million in 1967, there was no accurate tally of U.S. Hispanics. The first effort to count Hispanics came in the 1970 census, and the results were dubious.

The Census Bureau counted about 9.6 million Latinos, a little less than 5% of the population. The bureau acknowledged that the figure was inflated in the Midwest and South because some people who checked the box saying they were "Central or South American" thought that designation meant they were from the central or southern United States.

Most people in the U.S. did not have any neighbors from Central America or South America in the 1960s. The baby boom had just ended in 1964, and the country was growing through birth rates, not immigration, said Howard Hogan, the Census Bureau's associate director for demographic programs.

People responding to the Census survey — which uses the term "foreign born" rather than immigrant — are not asked whether they are legal or illegal.

In 1967, there were fewer than 10 million people in the U.S. who were born in other countries; that was not even one in 20. White non-Hispanics made up about 83% of the population.

Today, there are 36 million immigrants, about one in eight.

"We were much more of an insular society back then," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "It was much more of a white, middle-class, suburban society."

As of midday Sunday, there were 299,061,199 people in the United States, according to the Census Bureau's population clock. The estimate is based on annual numbers for births, deaths and immigration, averaged throughout the year.

The U.S. adds a person every 11 seconds, according to the clock. A baby is born every eight seconds, someone dies every 13 seconds, and someone migrates to the U.S. every 30 seconds.

At that rate, the 300 millionth person in the U.S. will be born — or cross the border — in October, though bureau officials are wary of committing to a particular month because of the subjective nature of the clock.

Hispanics surpassed blacks as the largest minority group in the 2001, and today make up more than 14% of the population.

The growth of the Latino population promises to have profound cultural, political and economic effects.

"I think we've already seen these changes," said Clara Rodriguez, a sociology professor at Fordham University.

"I think the music has been influenced by the Caribbean rhythms and the Latino singers," Rodriguez said. "I think economically, clearly immigrants are coming to work."

Don't forget the salsa-ketchup wars, well-publicized since salsa surpassed ketchup in U.S. sales in the 1990s, pitting the two condiments in a seesaw battle for supremacy ever since.

Many people are embracing the changes, but some are not, as evidenced by the national debate on immigration. The growing number of Hispanics is closely tied to immigration because about 40% are immigrants.

"I think there is a little bit of a culture shock effect, especially with the language," said Frey, the demographer. "But as people get to know their new neighbors, they find they are not that different from them."

The U.S. added 2.8 million people last year — a little more than a million from immigration and about 1.7 million because births outnumbered deaths.

The U.S. is the third largest country in the world, behind China and India. America's population is increasing by a little less than 1% a year, a pace that will keep it in third place for the foreseeable future, said Carl Haub, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau.

The world, with a population of 6.5 billion, is growing a little faster than 1% a year.

By the time the U.S. population hits 400 million, in the 2040s, white non-Hispanics will be but a bare majority. Hispanics are projected to make up close to one-quarter of the population, and blacks more than 14%. Asians will increase their share of the population to more than 7%.

Those percentages, however, are just projections. They are subject to big revisions, depending on immigration policy, cultural changes and natural or manmade disasters.

"In terms of projecting out a year or two, we're not too bad," said Hogan of the Census Bureau. "In 2043, I don't think anybody here would think they are particularly accurate."

One thing is certain: A lot more people who say they are Central American or South American will actually be from those places.

"The over 40 population dominated by the baby boomers, they're the ones in power now," said Frey. "But when we get to 2043, a lot of them will not be with us anymore. Those under 40 will be in power and we will be even more of a global society."

On The Net:

U.S. and world population clocks: http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html

    America's population to hit 300 million this fall, UT, 25.6.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-06-25-us-population_x.htm

Growth stretches areas of the Sun Belt

Posted 6/21/2006 12:10 AM ET
USA TODAY
By Haya El Nasser and Paul Overberg

Americans' unquenchable thirst for more space and cheaper housing is creating another boom in parts of the Sun Belt and redrawing the map of the USA halfway through the decade.

The 2005 city population estimates released by the Census Bureau Wednesday show that growth is shifting from large central cities that grew rapidly years ago to smaller, outlying communities in California, Texas, Arizona and Florida.

"Smaller places are grabbing more than half the growth this decade," says William Frey, demographer at the Brookings Institution, a think tank. "It wasn't so in the 1990s."

Among the top gainers since 2000: Gilbert (near Phoenix), Miramar (Miami), Elk Grove (Sacramento), Rancho Cucamonga and Irvine (Los Angeles).

Elk Grove grew the fastest from July 1, 2004, to July 1, 2005: up 12%, to 112,338.

It's not clear whether more people are moving within their state or are flocking from other regions to more remote Sun Belt communities. Big cities such as Dallas and Phoenix are not growing as fast as in recent years.

Texas is scoring big. San Antonio has overtaken San Diego as the No. 7 city, at 1.26 million. Four of the seven fastest-growing cities that have populations above 500,000 are in Texas: Fort Worth, San Antonio, Austin and El Paso.

"Across Texas, we've seen a resurgence in the last two years," says Steve Murdock, Texas state demographer.

Fort Worth had the biggest gain among the nation's large cities from 2004 to 2005: up 3.5% to 624,067. San Antonio was fifth at 1.7%. Both grew at faster rates than Dallas and Houston.

"Dallas ... really has no place to grow," Murdock says. Fort Worth "still has substantial room for expansion. Same is true of San Antonio."

San Diego registered a 0.7% decline to less than 1.3 million from 2004 to 2005. State estimates, however, show the city still growing a little bit, says Beth Jarosz, analyst at the San Diego Association of Governments.

"Regardless, San Diego is growing extraordinarily slowly, and we think part of the reason is high housing prices," she says. "There's a shift away from expensive coastal areas. ... It takes a little bit of pressure off our housing market."

Other highlights:

•Washington had a 0.7% drop to 550,521, from 2004 to 2005. The nation's capital probably will slip below Nashville (549,110) and Las Vegas (545,147) by next year.

•Green Bay, Wis.; Erie, Pa.; Cambridge, Mass; and Berkeley, Calif., could slip under 100,000 by 2010.

•More cities with 100,000-plus residents shrank from 2004 to 2005 than in the previous year: 97 vs. 82. Costly coastal cities are among the new losers: New York, San Diego and Long Beach.

Frey says 20 cities went from loss to gain, including Indianapolis, Wichita, Jersey City and Fort Wayne, Ind.

    Growth stretches areas of the Sun Belt, UT, 21.6.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2006-06-21-census-figures_x.htm

NYT        June 20, 2006

Surge of Population in the Exurbs Continues        NYT

21.6.2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/21/us/21cities.html

Surge of Population

in the Exurbs Continues

June 21, 2006
The New York Times
By RICK LYMAN

Once again, the fastest-growing cities in the United States are some of the far-flung exurbs in the Sun Belt and the Far West, according to fresh population estimates from the Census Bureau.

The bureau's annual survey of municipalities with at least 100,000 residents shows that from July 1, 2004, to July 1, 2005, four outer suburbs in California, three in Florida, two in Arizona and one in Nevada were the country's most rapidly growing.

Leading the list was Elk Grove, Calif., on the Sacramento area's far southern edge, which grew nearly 12 percent in those 12 months, to 112,338. Elk Grove was followed by North Las Vegas, Nev.; Port St. Lucie, Fla.; Gilbert, Ariz.; Cape Coral, Fla.; Moreno Valley, Calif.; Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.; Miramar, Fla.; Chandler, Ariz.; and Irvine, Calif.

Several of those cities were also on the previous year's list — Port St. Lucie was No. 1 then — and the pattern of the last decade has been for an increasing number of these distant exurbs to pace the national rate of population growth.

"As far as we are concerned, this is very good news indeed," said Christine Brainerd, spokeswoman for Elk Grove's city government. "It's a sign that the development strategies the city has put in place are working and that we have become a place where many, many people want to live."

The Census Bureau made the estimates by taking the full 2000 census tally and then using population indicators like building permits to make a guess about subsequent growth. Since the estimates were for July 1 of last year, they do not include any population changes brought about by Hurricane Katrina, which struck on Aug. 29.

The only change in population ranking among the nation's 10 largest cities was that San Antonio supplanted San Diego in seventh place, although Phoenix came within fewer than 2,500 people of taking over fifth place from Philadelphia, as it will almost certainly do in next year's estimates.

In terms of the actual number of additional residents, as opposed to percentage growth, Phoenix attracted the most, its population rising an estimated 44,456, to 1,461,575.

And it was a Phoenix exurb, Gilbert, on the metropolitan area's far southeastern flank, that ranked first in growth in percentage terms from 2000 to 2005, spurting 58 percent, to 173,989 from 110,061.

    Surge of Population in the Exurbs Continues, NYT, 21.6.2006,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/21/us/21cities.html

Data Show Newark Growing

and Upstate Still Emptying

June 21, 2006
The New York Times
By SAM ROBERTS

Newark's population grew slowly but steadily in the first half of this decade — one of several encouraging trends in the Northeast — but upstate New York's biggest cities continued to register declines, according to Census Bureau figures released yesterday.

Since 2000, 72 cities with more than 100,000 people nationwide had declines in population, about double the number that declined from 1990 to 2000. But while 12 of those cities were in the Northeast during both periods, the number of cities in the Midwest that recorded declines rose to 26 from 14, the number in the South to 26 from 11 and the number in the West to eight from zero.

From April 1, 2000, to July 1, 2005, Buffalo's population declined by 4.4 percent, Rochester's by 4 percent and Syracuse's by 3.3 percent. Losses have continued, but at a slower rate, since 2004.

During the same five-year period, three New Jersey cities recorded gains in population: 4.3 percent in Elizabeth, 3 percent in Newark and .4 percent in Paterson. Jersey City's population declined over all by .2 percent, but has grown slightly since 2004.

In Westchester, the population of Yonkers has edged up by .2 percent since 2000.

New York City's population has risen by 1.7 percent since 2000, but officials are challenging the census estimate that the city's population declined by 21,000 from 2004 to 2005.

"Older Northeast cities are showing gains or reduced declines, due to the spillover migration for immigrants and modest income natives looking for affordable alternatives to New York City and Boston," said William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution.

Robert B. Ward, director of research at the Business Council of New York State, an affiliate of the Public Policy Institute, said, "For upstate New York, it looks like more discouraging news."

Mr. Ward added, "Even Allentown, Pa., which Billy Joel used as the symbol of urban industrial decline, is adding population, if only modestly."

    Data Show Newark Growing and Upstate Still Emptying, NYT, 21.6.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/21/nyregion/21census.html

Flight of Young Adults

Is Causing Alarm Upstate

June 13, 2006
The New York Times
By SAM ROBERTS

Upstate New York is staggering from an accelerating exodus of young adults, new census results show. The migration is turning many communities grayer, threatening the long-term viability of ailing cities and raising concerns about the state's future tax base.

From 1990 to 2004, the number of 25-to-34-year-old residents in the 52 counties north of Rockland and Putnam declined by more than 25 percent. In 13 counties that include cities like Buffalo, Syracuse and Binghamton, the population of young adults fell by more than 30 percent. In Tioga County, part of Appalachia in New York's Southern Tier, 42 percent fewer young adults were counted in 2004 than in 1990.

"Make no mistake: this is not business as usual," Robert G. Wilmers, the chairman of M & T Bank in Buffalo, told his shareholders this spring. "The magnitude and duration of population loss among the young is unprecedented in our history. There has never been a previous 10-year period in the history of the upstate region when there has been any decline in this most vital portion of our population."

In New York City and the five suburban counties in New York State, the number of people ages 18 to 44 increased by 1.5 percent in the 1990's. Upstate, it declined by 10 percent.

Over all, the upstate population grew by 1.1 percent in the 1990's — slower than the rate for any state except West Virginia and North Dakota.

Population growth upstate might have lagged even more but for the influx of 21,000 prison inmates, who accounted for 30 percent of new residents. During the first half of the current decade, the pace of depopulation actually increased in many places.

David Shaffer, president of the Public Policy Institute, which is affiliated with the Business Council of New York State, described the hemorrhaging of young adults as "the worst kind of loss."

"You don't just magically make it up with new births," he said. "These are the people who are starting careers, starting families, buying homes."

In almost every place upstate, emigration rates were highest among college graduates, producing a brain drain, according to separate analyses of census results for The New York Times by two demographers, William Frey of the Brookings Institution and Andrew A. Beveridge of Queens College of the City University of New York. Among the nation's large metropolitan areas, Professor Frey said, Buffalo and Rochester had the highest rates of what he called "bright flight."

Irwin L. Davis, president of the Metropolitan Development Association in Syracuse, which promotes economic growth in central New York, said, "We're educating them and they're leaving."

And Gary D. Keith, vice president and regional economist for M & T Bank, said, "Sluggish job growth is the biggest driver of out-migration among young upstate adults."

The decline in the 1990's in the population ages 18 to 44 of the 52-county upstate region was "chilling," he said.

"When the jobs don't grow, the people go," Mr. Keith said.

Matthew O'Brien, a graduate of Siena College in Loudonville, N.Y., was 26 when he left his home in Troy, just northeast of Albany, a decade ago for a better job offer down South.

He first moved to South Carolina, and now lives with his wife, Melissa, a Rochester expatriate, and their two children in Tampa, Fla., where he handles manufacturing operations for the company that makes Bubble Wrap packaging.

"I guess if I look back and think of the people I went to high school with, they all kind of went away to college, and that might have been a steppingstone to building a career," Mr. O'Brien said. "Not a lot did come back."

Some of the decline in the number of young adults may also have reflected children who left in the 1970's or 1980's with their parents.

Mr. O'Brien's parents still live in Troy, which was known in the 19th century for the manufacture of detachable collars and also led the nation at one point in iron and steel production. All but two of his eight siblings moved away, though.

While the chronic economic woes upstate have been of growing concern for a decade or more, the accelerating departure of young people is considered particularly alarming.

It has already been injected into this year's campaign for governor, with both major candidates, Eliot Spitzer and John Faso, highlighting population stagnation there and the need to help spur business activity.

Last month, after graduating with a master's degree in engineering from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Andrew Allen, 23, returned to his parents' home in Greece, a Rochester suburb. He is weighing job possibilities and may pursue a doctoral degree.

But staying in Rochester, where his father works at Kodak, the city's second-largest employer, is probably not one of his options.

"Rochester is on the list, but do I think I'll work here? Probably not," he said. "When you think Rochester, you think Kodak. But you also think layoffs."

Of eight close friends of Mr. Allen's from high school, one is finishing graduate school in Rochester and one has decided to start a career there, he said. The others have left.

As more young people depart, the population is aging. In Broome County, which includes Binghamton in the Southern Tier, the median age rose to 38.2 in 2004 from 33.3 in 1990.

"The number of upstate residents 45 or older increased by 15.3 percent, even as the number of young people, on whom they rely to hold jobs and pay taxes, went down sharply," Mr. Wilmers of M & T Bank said.

The number of young adults was expected to decline naturally as baby boomers, some of whom were younger than 35 in 1990, grew older. Only two counties in the state — Manhattan and Queens — actually gained young adults from 1990 to 2000.

From 1990 to 2004, all but one of the state's 62 counties recorded a decline in 25-to-34-year-olds, ranging from 1 percent in Manhattan to 42 percent in Tioga.

The sole gainer was neighboring Tompkins County in the Finger Lakes, where Cornell University, Ithaca College and tourism have boosted the job market.

The numerical decline during that period in Erie County, around Buffalo, was second only to the decline in Nassau County, where high home prices have also driven away many young adults.

In Syracuse, total population losses may have been stanched since 2000 as children have returned to take care of aging parents, jobs have become available in more diverse fields and housing prices have become more affordable. "It's given us some hope that we're going to arrest the continuing decline of young people," said Mr. Davis, of the Metropolitan Development Association there.

In the Rochester area, Andrew Allen's older sister, Laura Jeanne Hammond, 26, returned to her hometown after graduating in 2001 from the University of Missouri with a journalism degree. She was hired as managing editor of Next Step Magazine, which is distributed in school guidance offices, and also founded a social group, Rochester-Area 20-Somethings. "My friends escaped to New York City for a life of poverty and I bought a house and started a family," she said.

Since people in a specific age group in 1990 are not the same people counted in 2004, it would be imprecise to say that the population declines in the 25-to-34 age group represented people who necessarily moved out.

In 1999, upstate residents were asked in a poll for M & T Bank if they intended to move to another state in the next five years. Fully 40 percent of 18-to-30-year-olds replied yes. Most people said they would head to the South or the West. But among young adults, a high percentage said they were uncertain where they would wind up.

Among all people who left Erie County, according to an analysis by M & T Bank of data from 2003 tax returns, about half moved elsewhere in the state. About as many moved to Los Angeles County as moved to either Manhattan or Brooklyn.

Rolf Pendall, a Cornell University professor who studied population losses for the Brookings Institution, said: "Upstate New York and the great bulk of the territory of Pennsylvania are unusual in the United States in that this is an urbanized region, with 15 million residents in a couple dozen census-defined metropolitan areas. The Upper Great Plains, Lower Mississippi Delta and Appalachia are also regions that have lost population — and have in fact bled people for decades — but they are rural. They share, of course, issues of serious and long-term economic transition and transformation."

Catherine Richter, 23, a public relations executive, was raised in the Hudson Valley, attended the State University of New York at Geneseo and went to work in Rochester, but after becoming a victim of several minor crimes, she asked for a transfer to Albany. There, she joined a group similar to the one Laura Hammond founded in Rochester.

"The other option for a lot of people my age is to move down South, but I don't think that's for me," Ms. Richter said. "One of the main missions of the group is to stop the brain drain. And we're trying to do that by increasing the arts scene and lots of networking."

Michelle York contributed reporting for this article.

    Flight of Young Adults Is Causing Alarm Upstate, NYT, 13.6.2006,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/13/nyregion/13census.html