| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Politix |
| In about 20 years, half the population will live in eight states |
| 2018-07-16 |
| [WAPO] In response to Post opinion writer Paul Waldman’s essay about the current power of the minority in American politics, the American Enterprise Institute’s Norman Ornstein offered a stunning bit of data on Twitter. In broad strokes, Ornstein is correct. The Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service of the University of Virginia analyzed Census Bureau population projections to estimate each state’s likely population in 2040, including the expected breakdown of the population by age and gender. Although that data was released in 2016, before the bureau revised its estimates for the coming decades, we see that, in fact, the population will be heavily centered in a few states. Eight states will have just under half of the total population of the country, 49.5 percent, according to the Weldon Cooper Center’s estimate. The next eight most populous states will account for an additional fifth of the population, up to 69.2 percent ‐ meaning that the 16 most populous states will be home to about 70 percent of Americans. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #10 Making predictions on trends continuing is foolish. At some point the Boomers living in NY and California are like to buy homes in red states so that their retirement money goes a lot, lot, further. |
| Posted by: ruprecht 2018-07-16 16:33 |
| #9 The Senate and Electoral College shall thus be even more important against popular mobs in those mostly-blue states. |
| Posted by: si vis pacem, para bellum 2018-07-16 16:26 |
| #8 Politicians in California seem to think that anybody in the whole wide world who wants to live here should be welcomed. That means sacrificing the quality of life that those of us who already live here enjoy. They are currently in the process of turning the entire state into one vast slum. The freeways are gridlocked and crumbling, we don't have enough water, schools and hospitals are vastly overcrowded and the politicians keep telling us we need more affordable housing so we can accept more people. But the more they build the higher the cost of housing rises. At the same time, people looking to escape the high taxes and the extraordinarily high cost of living are leaving the state. I can think of four families I know right now who are leaving. It all leads me to the conclusion that our politicians are either insane or crooked or both. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2018-07-16 12:32 |
| #7 It was 48% in the 2010 census, so ho is this news? |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2018-07-16 10:25 |
| #6 'google' the title John. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2018-07-16 09:39 |
| #5 |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2018-07-16 09:38 |
| #4 In 1930 What would they have predicted the populations of Lansing, MI and Detroit, MI in the 2030's? |
| Posted by: magpie 2018-07-16 09:30 |
| #3 The story is behind a WAPO paywall. I can guess at the states. Probably all Blue states and probably all according to the Dem plans. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2018-07-16 08:55 |
| #2 Eight states will have just under half of the total population of the country, 49.5 percent, according to the Weldon Cooper Center’s estimate. 1. I was told back in the 60s we'd all be starving to death because the numbers projected couldn't be supported by the planet. 2. Isn't the electoral college wonderful. Not to mention the Constitutional requirement to amend by super majority of states. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2018-07-16 07:31 |
| #1 Predictions, prognostications and tea leaves. What would we do without them? |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2018-07-16 07:20 |