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0 Comments | Insight on the News, May 21, 2001 | by August Gribbin, | Cheryl Wetzstein

The government has released its first analysis of Census 2000 data, showing an increase of nearly 33 million people during the last with the biggest gains in the West and South.

The population of the United States grew more between 1990 and 2000 than in any previous decade. Every state and the biggest cities increased in population; 80 percent of the U.S. population -- some 226 million people -- now live in metro areas, up from 198.4 million in 1990.

What's more, according to the Census Bureau, the U.S. population center has shifted again. It's now located in Phelps County, Mo., near tiny Edgar Springs (population 190), roughly 110 miles southwest of St. Louis. The population center is a theoretical point on an imaginary map of the United States where the nation would balance with its 281,421,906 residents scattered around it. In 1790, by comparison, the population center was in Kent County, Md., 23 miles east of Baltimore.

U.S. POPULATION GROWTH FROM 1990 TO 2000

Percent change in total population from
1990 to 2000, by state

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

U.S. POPULATION GROWTH

                     1950-60   1960-70   1970-80   1980-90   1990-2000

Growth in millions   28        24        23        22        32.7
Percent change       18.4%     13.4%     11.4%      9.8%     13.2%

Note: Table made from a bar graph

The U.S. population "is growing faster than anyone thought it would and faster than it has grown in several decades," says John Long, the Census Bureau's chief demographer. The 13.2 percent population gain between 1990 and 2000 represents the addition of 32.7 million people -- the largest census-to-census increase in U.S. history. It surpasses by 4.7 million the huge "baby-boom" population bulge of 1950-1960.

The West gained 10.4 million people (19.7 percent), putting its total population above 63 million. The South added 14.8 million (17.3 percent), making it home to more than 100 million. Some 4.7 million people moved to the Midwest, a 7.9 percent increase, bringing its total population to 64.4 million. The Northeast added 2.8 million for a 5.5 percent increase, its population now at 53.6 million.

The new census figures show that the New York City area, which includes northern New Jersey, Long Island and parts of Connecticut and Pennsylvania, still reigns as the most populous metro area, at 21,199,865. The Los Angeles metro area is second with 16,373,645 spread throughout Los Angeles, Riverside and Orange counties. The Chicago metropolitan area is third in population, encompassing 9,157,540.

Las Vegas was the fastest-growing metro area in the last decade, increasing by 83 percent to 1,563,282 people. Naples, Fla., grew 65 percent, the second-fastest, to 251,377. Other rapidly growing metro areas are Yuma and Phoenix, Ariz.; McAllen, Allen and Laredo, Texas; Fayetteville, Ark. and Boise, Idaho.

Meanwhile, the Population Reference Bureau, a nonprofit, nonadvocacy organization, sees a trend toward "quieting" among American families, at least compared to the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s. The last decade brought a slowing of "the pace of change," according to Suzanne M. Bianchi and Lynne M. Casper, authors of the report.

For instance, among all American households in 1960, the portion of married couples with children was 44.2 percent; by 1990, it was 26.3 percent. But during the next 10 years, there was little change in the number of married-couple families; by 1998, 24.6 percent of households were traditional families.

One reason family trends steadied during the 1990s was that the 70 million members of the baby-boom generation began aging into their forties and fifties. "The major portion of the population is starting to grow up," says Casper, a health scientist at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. "They're past the time where they're going to have kids out of wedlock or divorce." There also has been a good economy, "and when the economy is good, I think it's easier for families to stay together and things to be stabilized," says Bianchi, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland.