2008 County/City Census Estimates

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The county estimates have just been released. They are at:

http://www.census.gov/popest/estimates.html

I see they are continuing with this Excel/CSV crap and not just posting the numbers on their website like they used to. That is very inconvenient of them.

Great news is the fastest growing county is Kendall in Illinois. Good to see a non-Sunbelt place at #1.

If these are accurate, 4 counties will have doubled between 2000 and 2010:

Kendall, IL     (suburban Chicago. Why it and Will are growing so fast is a mystery)
Flagler, FL      (Small Coastal County in Northeast Florida. Had fastest growth in the entire country in the 1980's)
Pinal, AZ        (South of Phoenix, will be hard hit by the recession.)
Rockwall, TX   (Small suburban county just east of Dallas)

The press release says St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana was the fastest-growing county from 2007-2008.  Orleans was third.

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Last year both Nassau & Suffolk County on LI challenged the Census Bureau estimates and won.

Nassau is now listed at 1,351,625 up from 1,334,544 in the 2000 census, the previous estimate had Nassau at 1,306,533 last year which was revised to 1,353,061  The new revisions so a slight loss over the last few years down from 1,356,857 in 2004.

Suffolk is now listed at 1,512,224 up from 1,419,389 in the 2000 census.  this is up very slightly from the revised estimate of 1,511,732 in 07, they previously  had Suffolk at 1,453,229.

Overall NY was at 19,490,297 up from the 07 estimate of 19,429,316 and the 2000 census of 18,976,457

The fastest-growing New York county from 2007 to 2008 in percentage terms was Richmond (Staten Island).  It's the only county that kept pace with the national growth rate.  Next fastest were Orange (exurban NYC), Tompkins (Ithaca), Saratoga (suburban Albany), Ontario (south of Rochester), Kings (Brooklyn), Queens, and Schenectady.

The fastest-declining counties were all Upstate, with Lewis County in the Adirondacks leading the way.  Downstate, only Nassau County lost population (-0.11%).   Putnam, Ulster and Suffolk Counties were relatively flat.

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Biggest losers:

1. Loving, TX: -22.2%

12 people weren't loving Loving County.  So they left the other 42 souls behind.

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Have you ever had the pleasure of reading up on Loving County?  There needs to be a television miniseries before it's too late.  So much potential.

Cumulative since 2000 [with 2007-2008 rank in brackets]:

Gainers
1. Kendall, IL: +89.7% [#4]
2. Flagler, FL: +83.1% [#73]
3. Pinal, AZ: +82.1% [#2]
4. Rockwall, TX: +80.2% [#12]
5. Loudoun, VA: +71.0% [#24]
6. Forsyth, GA: +70.8% [#7]
7. Lincoln, SD: +64.6% [#15]
8. Paulding, GA: +63.0% [#27]
9. Henry, GA: +60.5% [#88]
10. Douglas, CO: +59.7% [#68]
11. Newton, GA: +58.9% [#127]
12. Williamson, TX: +57.7% [#8]
13. Union, NC: +56.3% [#16]
14. Collin, TX: +55.0% [#33]
15. Lyon, NV: +53.7% [#640]

Wonder what drove the growth in Lyon County that crashed so quickly.

Yup.  There's not even a school in the county.  And it's not uncommon for there to be more voters than residents in local elections.  Kind of like a smaller Cook County.

As for Lyon County, NV, some of the growth appears to be in the city of Fernley (according to the Census, approximately +4200 people in the CDP and +50% from the city's incorporation in 2001 to 2007; according to the Nevada State Demographer, +10,800/+122% from April 2000 to July 2008), in the north part of the county off of I-80.  According to Wikipedia, Amazon.com built a warehouse/distribution center there, others followed, and the city grew.  And it's also a bedroom community for Reno. 

Yerington, the county seat in the middle of the county, also grew by about 1,000 people (+34%) from 2000 to 2007, according to the 2007 estimates.   

I suspect that some of the rest of the growth was in the Dayton Valley area near Carson City - basically, suburban sprawl from Carson City and Reno.  You can see what's clearly new construction on Google Maps in and around the US-50/NV-79 junction.

By the way, the Nevada State Demographer thinks Lyon County growth was -0.1% from July 2007 to July 2008.  It started trailing off from near-double-digit growth to 3.5% in the prior year.

One of the things that might have slowed growth in the Fernley area was a levee breach last January that flooded 400 homes.  And like other exurban areas, I suspect it has been hit hard by the housing market.

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Sublette's growth probably has more to do with developing natural gas and oil fields than tourism or retirement.  It's off the beaten tourist track.

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Rich County, UT is so small that a few families moving in or out could affect the numbers.  Based on the 2007 city estimates, some more people probably moved into the Garden City area (on Bear Lake)  year-round.

Same with Alpine County, CA.