Has your county's population peaked?

[golden eagle]

I came across a very interesting map that shows when counties and independent cities stopped growing or are still growing. There's a huge concentration of counties in the Midwest and South that have peaked.

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/02/1270828/-When-did-your-county-s-population-peak-This-map-shows-you?showAll=yes%3Fdetail%3Dfacebook

[Brandon]

No.  Will County is still growing, and is projected to reach 2 million eventually (currently about 650,000).

[froggie]

For a state as small and ungrowing as it is, I'm surprised Vermont only has one county that peaked prior to 2000.

Also impressed that there are 5 Virginia counties that had more population pre-Civil War than they do today.

[Zeffy]

With the exception of Essex and Union counties, it looks like New Jersey continues to grow. I don't know if that's a good thing, or a bad thing.

[J N Winkler]

For Sedgwick County, Kansas, the answer is No, but I am not aware that either the size or year of a future population peak has ever been calculated.  Growth has been monotonically upward since the county was organized in the 1860's, but--ignoring census results in the early decades, which are subject to "small numbers" statistical problems--the inter-Census percentage growth rate has fluctuated from 66% (1900-1910) to 2% (1970-1980), with sustained high growth over the two decades before the Depression (inter-Census percentage growth rates of 26% and 48%) and the two decades after World War II (inter-Census percentage growth rates both around 55%) as well as moderate growth over the past three decades (inter-Census percentage growth rates around 10%).

Kansas as a whole has never had population growth rates as high as its most populous counties--indeed, Kansas lost population in the Dust Bowl decade (1930-1940)--and its share of the US population as a whole is in long-term decline.  For Johnson County (which recently displaced Sedgwick as the most populous Kansas county) it may be different, but my intuition is that most of the population growth in Sedgwick County has come more at the expense of rural counties in Kansas than from migration from outside the state.  If this is true and representative of a long-term trend, then the annual growth rate will eventually level out until it matches the statewide growth rate, which has been running at about half the US growth rate for the last three decades or so.  I think Sedgwick County may already have passed its peak in terms of share of the US population.

[golden eagle]

For Johnson County (which recently displaced Sedgwick as the most populous Kansas county) it may be different, but my intuition is that most of the population growth in Sedgwick County has come more at the expense of rural counties in Kansas than from migration from outside the state.

I think that could be legitimate. Johnson is growing because of Kansas City, so I suspect a lot of its residents are coming from the Missouri side, or those migrating from other areas. I suspect this could be true with many states with a declining rural population, but have growing urban areas. Mississippi is a good example. The Delta area is dropping like a rock, but metro Jackson is growing. Slowly, but better than no growth. Some may've also moved towards the Memphis area, namely Desoto County, though most of its growth is coming from Memphians moving out.

[NJRoadfan]

The thing that puzzles me about this map is that most of New York City's counties apparently peaked, yet housing is in high demand and new units continue to be added.

[Alps]

The thing that puzzles me about this map is that most of New York City's counties apparently peaked, yet housing is in high demand and new units continue to be added.

Slum clearance. New units are being added, but old, more crowded units are being demolished. (That, of course, leads to high demand.)

[corco]

2000, which surprises me since the major industry (the railroad) left in 1980. I know the state economic development agency did population projections recently, and we're expected to go from 7,000 to 5,000 over the next 30 years.

[ET21]

No.  Will County is still growing, and is projected to reach 2 million eventually (currently about 650,000).

You could make the case for all the collar counties of Cook.

[golden eagle]

Researching the five burroughs (which are, legally, counties), I'm not buying that they have peaked. The Bronx' highest population peak with was in 1970, with 1.471 million people. It bottomed out to almost 1.169 million a decade later, and has been going up every since. 2012 estimates put it at 1.408M.

Manhattan (New York County) topped out at 2.3M in 1910, bottoming out at 1.428M in 1980. 2012 estimates now put it at 1.619M, the highest since 1960.

Queens had its highest peak in 2010. Estimates show it's still climbing, with around 2.272M.

Brooklyn was at its highest in 1950 with 2.738M. The population bottomed to 2.3M in 1190, but has now gone up to 2.5M.

Staten Island (Richmond County) has never recorded a population loss in the official census. They were at 468,730 in 2010. Estimates put it at 470,728.

The Bronx and Manhattan have fallen from their peaks, but they are rebounding. The Bronx is within striking distance of surpassing their 1970 peak. Manhattan has a little bit farther to go.

[froggie]

Researching the five burroughs (which are, legally, counties), I'm not buying that they have peaked.

Keep in mind that we're not talking about projections...the map specifically is using past data from the decennial Censuses.

Yes, the city (and others, DC being another notable one) are recovering, but they haven't returned to their peak population level yet.

[Duke87]

Researching the five burroughs (which are, legally, counties), I'm not buying that they have peaked.

Keep in mind that we're not talking about projections...the map specifically is using past data from the decennial Censuses.

Yes, the city (and others, DC being another notable one) are recovering, but they haven't returned to their peak population level yet.

Precisely.

What's interesting is the fact that although the population of New York City as a whole is higher than it has ever been, borough by borough this is only true of Queens and Staten Island. Now, Queens and Staten Island have not grown nearly as much in the past 20 years as Manhattan, Brooklyn, and The Bronx have. But what makes the difference is that Queens and Staten Island did not see a mass exodus in the 70s and 80s the way Manhattan, Brooklyn, and The Bronx did, so they are not rebounding so much as they are just still growing.


Also not surprising to see how so many rural counties are long past peak. In the middle third of the country, it's consequences of the dust bowl. In the south it's consequences of blacks leaving plantations and moving north. In Appalachia it's consequences of declines in demand for coal.


I do find it amazing, though, that Buckingham county, Virginia had its highest population in 1810(!). There must be a story there.

[Takumi]

Yeah, the story is that section of Virginia has absolutely nothing!

[J N Winkler]

Also not surprising to see how so many rural counties are long past peak. In the middle third of the country, it's consequences of the dust bowl.

The Dust Bowl is a contributory factor, but in Kansas at least, it stands out only in the statewide data for the 1930-1940 inter-Census period.  The stylized demography for most counties in western Kansas (for which the historian Craig Miner has noted that dryland wheat farming is the only form of economic production that has survived the test of time) is rapid population fluctuation, both up and down, in the early years, due to the boom-and-bust cycles that resulted from cash farming without price supports, weather insurance, irrigation infrastructure, or any real understanding of the local climate.  Later on, the Dust Bowl drove out a fair few family farmers, but in many counties the biggest drops in population actually came later, as a result of agricultural mechanization, which promotes farm consolidation.  If you look at population data for Rooks County (northwest Kansas) as one example, the biggest population drop (21.6%) was actually between 1960 and 1970--a generally prosperous period in Kansas but also, in rural counties, marked by a draconian and furiously controversial school consolidation program.

I think that could be legitimate. Johnson is growing because of Kansas City, so I suspect a lot of its residents are coming from the Missouri side, or those migrating from other areas.

In the case of Johnson County, a big pull factor is the Shawnee Mission school district, which is usually rated in the top ten nationally for academics, while a big push factor is the Kansas City school district, which lost its accreditation three years ago (meaning, as I understand it, that the high school diplomas it issues are now worthless for seeking employment or college admission).  JoCo land values are high, and property taxes are correspondingly high, but I would be willing to bet that the JoCo property tax burden is less than the Kansas City (Mo.) property tax burden plus the annual cost of private school fees for a typical middle-income family.  And JoCo has been experiencing growth outside the Shawnee Mission district as well--Gardner, which is about 20 miles from downtown KC, tripled its population between 1990 and 2000 and then doubled its 2000 population by 2010.

[golden eagle]

Out of curiosity, are there any serious discussions of counties merging? I would think there would be some cost savings for cash-strapped counties.

[J N Winkler]

Out of curiosity, are there any serious discussions of counties merging? I would think there would be some cost savings for cash-strapped counties.

In Kansas a while ago, a not-very-serious proposal (105 counties down to 13) got shot down.  Policy discussion of consolidation tends to focus first on school districts and then on city-county consolidation in metropolitan counties (has been proposed for Wichita and Sedgwick County, has actually happened for Wyandotte County and KCK), which is not too surprising given how the mill levy is distributed in most counties.  The rule of thumb is about 135 mills total for urban areas, of which about 50 mills goes to a city and 50 mills to a school district, with the remainder going to the county and special districts.  Plus school consolidation has long been regarded as an obvious source for governmental efficiencies, because it reduces the staffing and physical plant that has to be provided per pupil and increases the likelihood that there will be enough critical mass for specialty services like advanced science courses in high school, special education, etc.  Increased busing costs and community decline claw back some of the returns to scale, but those factors have never stopped consolidation drives altogether in Kansas.

In South Dakota there have been successful efforts at county consolidation (two relatively recently:  Armstrong County abolished in 1952, Washabaugh County in 1983), but they have never gone as far as they logically could go, considering that a total of six counties either are entirely on Indian reservation land or exist on paper only, without county seats within their borders.

[english si]

Out of curiosity, are there any serious discussions of counties merging? I would think there would be some cost savings for cash-strapped counties.

Interestingly, in England, despite generally bigger local authorities than the US* that provide less, this is a very real thing.

Two-tier (county dealing with education, roads, social services, oversight; districts/boroughs dealing with waste, leisure, planning requests) councils are merging into so-called 'unitary authorities' which in recent years the consultations have always given the lowest number of authorities, with the exception of Cheshire, where two were created (rather than a 600k authority that would have been third biggest, though Cornwall is 530k and became one authority: as did 510k Durham and 474k Wiltshire).

And the London boroughs of Westminster (pop: 219,600), Kensington & Chelsea (158,300), Hammersmith & Fulham (182,400) - all of which were mergers of boroughs (Paddington, St Marylebone, Westminster; Kensington, Chelsea; Hammersmith, Fulham) when Greater London was created - have started merging functions. These inner city boroughs have (1861 seems to be Westminster's peak, when the three boroughs had about twice the population as the current merged population) peaked, but they aren't in decline - Westminster converted from being the place in London where people lived to the place where people work. The others turned from villages to crummy suburbs to (mostly) incredibly well-off inner city districts, so density rapidly increased and then decreased slightly.

*there are 6 districts/boroughs/unitaries are smaller than 50,000 people, only 30 are smaller than 75k. About 100 are smaller than 100k, 229 are bigger than 100k. Two tier counties have populations of 300,000—1.4 million.

[Desert Man]

Riverside County has about 2.2 million people right now, the county's population has expanded greatly over the last 3 decades by high suburban growth in cities like Corona, Moreno Valley, Hemet, Lake Elsinore and Murrieta-Temecula. Throughout the county the size of Massachusetts, tens of thousands of new homes have been built in the time period and just recently, more industrial and commercial development entered the county known for long driving commutes. The county continues to grow and may reach 2.5 million residents by the year 2020 and who knows, 3 million by the year 2030.

Unfortunately, new residents deal with quality of life issues they believed to left behind when they moved into Riverside county. There is substantial crime, drug trafficking and youth gang activity. And residents find the area's climate warmer in the summer and cooler in the winter depending on elevation (Banning-Beaumont and Hemet-San Jacinto for examples). Younger residents want a more social life, more educational pursuits and recreational activities in Riverside county, in which they're being met.