![]() There is wide variation in 2016-17 growth rates within the Sun Belt ( download Table 1) with 16 of the 30 states (including Washington, D.C.) growing faster than the national population growth rate of 0.72 percent. Yet some of the shifts are surprising and suggest future areas of unevenness within the regions. The slower growth in the Sun Belt is not uniform across the region, nor is the slight uptick in Snow Belt growth pervasive across the nation’s Northeast and Midwest states. Yet, the last year showed a noticeable drop in net migration gains-down to 470,000, lowering its growth differential to 0.75 percent. By 2015-16, the net migration to the region rose to nearly 600,000 and its growth differential rose above 0.9 percent. Net movement from Snow Belt to Sun Belt states shrunk from 611,000 in 2004-05 to levels well below 400,000 in 2012-13 so that, by the latter year, the Sun Belt’s growth advantage was reduced to 0.64 percent.Įventually, Sun Belt growth began to pick up along with the re-emergence of national labor and housing markets. This plummeted as the recession and housing crisis reduced movement to previous fast growing parts of the country such as Florida, Nevada, and Arizona. ![]() In 2004-07, the annual growth differential between the two was well over 1 percent. While Sun Belt growth exceeded Snow Belt growth throughout this time span, the growth disparity was widest in the years prior to the 2007-09 recession. Yet the growth differential between the two mega-regions, which had widened through 2013, has noticeably shrunk last year.įigure 1 displays the annual growth of these regions from 2000-01 to 2016-17. In fact, if the current rates of growth continues through the 2020 Census, the Sun Belt will increase its advantage over the Snow Belt in congressional representation from 263 to 172, currently, to a projected 270 to 165. To be sure, the collective populations of the South and West “Sun Belt” states continue to grow faster than those in the Northeast and Midwest “Snow Belt”. This counters last year’s estimates that suggested a steady “back to normal” trend for the long-standing population shifts from the nation’s Northeast and Midwestern states toward the South and West, after a lull that lasted several years after the recession. At the same time, many Snow Belt states have seen unexpected growth upticks. ![]() Newly released Census estimates that track population changes through July 2017 suggest that the rising post-recession Sun Belt boom has hit a snag in some places.
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