"A human wave is breaking over California, flooding freeways and schools, bloating housing costs, disrupting power and water supplies. Ignoring it hasn't worked." -- The LA Times. Quotable:
During the last half of the last century � an epoch encompassing most of the baby boom and, a generation later, all of the boom's echo � the state's population grew by more than 24 million. The next 24 million � more than the population of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Nebraska combined � will arrive more quickly, inflating the total to nearly 60 million within 36 years .. California's population, currently at 36 million, likely will double within the lifetime of today's schoolchildren ..
No other state has so many residents (Texas ranks second, but with almost 40% fewer people), and no other state comes close to matching California's annual net population increase. In Los Angeles County and five surrounding counties�Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, Ventura and Imperial�the population now stands at more than 17 million. That's nearly 6% of the U.S. population, one in every 17 Americans, all within a four-hour drive�if you can find four hours when the traffic isn't bad. At least 20% already live in crowded housing, and poverty levels have increased steadily for three decades. Yet during the next 25 years the region is projected to grow by 6 million ...
Demographic studies after the 2000 census revealed that from 1990 to 2000, immigrants and their children accounted not for just some, or even most, of California's growth. They accounted for virtually all of it. Of the increase of 4.2 million people during those 10 years, the net gain generated by the native population was just 90,000, fewer than attend each year's Rose Bowl game.
Immigrants .. inflate the population not just by coming to California but by having children once they're here. While the combined birthrate for California's U.S. citizens and immigrants who are not Latino has dropped to replacement level, the birthrate for Latino immigrants from Mexico and Central America averages more than three children per mother ..
the earth's population doubled to 5 billion in a mere 37 years (1950 to 1987) and will more than double again in this century, many countries, particularly in Europe, now have low fertility rates, relatively low immigration levels and are losing population. In sharp contrast, the U.S., at more than 292 million the world's third-most populous country behind behemoths China and India, will soon glide past 300 million en route to 400 million before mid-century. In this respect, America stands alone in the developed world. United Nations projections show just eight countries accounting for half of the planet's population increase between now and 2050. Seven of them come as no surprise: China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The other country is the United States, largely because of its generous immigration policies ..
Overshadowed by the state's long-term fiscal quagmire is the less publicized neglect of aging infrastructure that wasn't designed to serve current population levels, let alone a population projected to be nearly two-thirds larger within 36 years .. To handle the anticipated yearly increase of 600,000 new residents�equal to three new cities the size of Glendale�the state must engineer and build billions of dollars of new infrastructure and facilities ..
the state also has an evolving crisis of shifting demographics as immigration expands the underclass, which pays a lesser share of the tax burden. The Southern California Assn. of Governments' 2003 State of the Region Report found that the region's position "is slipping in nearly every performance category related to socio-economic well-being, including income and educational attainment. Among 17 major metropolitan areas nationwide, the region ranks 16th or worse in ... attainment of high school degrees, per capita income, persons in poverty, and children in poverty."
Note well. This article is NOT by an LA Times staff member, and was NOT published in the news pages of the LA Times. Here's a tip. Don't be surprised if someone gets fired at the LA Times Magazine.
(hat tip to John and Ken).
Posted by Greg Ransom
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