Behind the Numbers: The PRB blog on population, health, and the environment

by Mark Mather, associate vice president, Domestic Programs

The population in America’s largest cities is booming, according to new data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Just a few years ago, the annual growth rate in the 10 largest cities was around 0.5 percent per year, around half the national average. But the latest figures, from 2008, indicate that the population in America’s 10 largest cities is growing faster than the population living outside of those areas. 

(click on figure to view a larger version)

So what’s driving the change? There are a couple of factors at work. First, big cities are still important destinations for immigrants, who tend to be younger (of reproductive age) and create a lot of population momentum. Second, given the rising unemployment rate and drop in home prices around the country, fewer people are making long distance moves to places like Florida, or even local moves to the suburbs. Chicago, once a perennial population loser, is now growing faster than several former boom towns, including Jacksonville, Las Vegas, and even Cape Coral, Florida, which, a few years ago, was one of the fastest growing cities in the country.

The question for Chicagoans: How long can it last? When the economy bounces back, will people start leaving Chicago en masse?  Population trends are closely linked to job trends so future population growth in big cities such as Chicago depends, in part, on their ability to keep people employed.

by Carl Haub, Senior Demographer 

The Global Forum on Migration and Development, a global initiative within the framework of the UN General Assembly is having its annual meetings this week in Manila. This got me to thinking how global patterns of migration have changed and how they continue to change. A century or more ago, the big story would have been unfettered migration to that grand, nearly empty, continent, America. Hard economic times and famines drove many migrants from Germany, Ireland, Sweden, and the like. Anyone who could afford a ticket could become one of the newest Americans. That “escape valve” is no longer unregulated and migrating to the United States and Canada is no longer the free-for-all it once was.

After World war II, Europe began to have the American experience more and more, receiving increasing numbers of migrants from former or existing colonies or as “temporary” guest workers. Much of that was facilitated by the airplane. People used to note that planes to New York from San Juan came in full and went out empty. Now we see a rising tide of ‘south-south” migration. Just as the kinetic pull of higher wage rates pulls migrants from Mexico to the United States, so do migrants from Guatemala enter Mexico. So many Bangladeshis flood into India that India is once again planning a border fence.

Many national reactions to these streams of migrants have been schizophrenic at best. The UK seemed to have a liberal policy toward new EU migrants but now enthusiasm for non-English-speaking migrants is waning. There is now a debate about adopting an Australian style point system. With few exceptions, it seems that the world wants to move to a world without migration even if more hands and more workers paying taxes are actually needed. Maybe the population bomb has found its fuse.

For more, take a look at PRB’s Population Bulletin - Managing Migration: The Global Challenge and Is Woolas Right? from The Guardian UK Politics Blog.