California, the traditional destination of dreamers of all ages and walks of life from aspiring actors to tech-savvy entrepreneurs, is actually lagging behind the rest of the nation in population growth.
New Geography reports that all five of its major metropolitan regions with populations above 1,000,000 are underperforming compared to their 2010 Census estimates. For instance, Los Angeles has had a 4.5 percent gain in population since 2010, lower than the 5.4 percent projected growth. Population change in the San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento, Fresno, and the San Joaquin Valley also didn’t measure up to projections. The San Diego market, with a population under 1,000,000, was the only major market the overperformed.
In 2016 California’s growth rate fell below that of the nation for the first time in the decade coming in at 0.66 percent, compared to the national rate of 0.70 percent. Between 2011 and 2016, California’s average population increase was 18 percent above the national rate. Once a beacon for growth, California’s growth is more stagnant than in the past.
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