• NEWS:  From the Census Bureau...
  
• REDISTRICTING AFTER 2010 CENSUS.
  
• Retirement for "Baby Boom" generation in doubt?
  
• Census 2010 for Weston, CT.
• CTSDC map for population change 2007
  
• New England
• U.S. Census Bureau "American Factfinder"
• "OUT THERE DEPARTMENT" FOR DATA:  

• CENSUS 2010 planning going on now...
• Connecticut State Data Center here;
  
• IN-BETWEEN CENSUS observations from the Business Council;  special reports;
  
• U.S. Census Bureau Population Reports here;
• Population Projections for Connecticut 2030 by UCONN here.
• One of the most important things to know about population projections is:  what are the underlying assumptions about those conditions that affect people? 
  
• LINK HERE TO "QUICK FACTS" DATA FOR WESTON FROM WEBSITE OF CENSUS BUREAU - U.S. CENSUS OF POPULATION AND HOUSING 2000
• State Data Center here;  for more immediate and on the ground information relating to WHY the numbers and trends are what they are, please link to SWRPA.
• "The Five Connecticuts" report link...
  

Connecticut's population topped 3.5 million people for the first time in 2004, with the state adding nearly as many people during the past four years as it added during the entire 1990s, the U.S. Census Bureau is reporting today.

Relative to the previous three years, Connecticut's growth slowed this past year, but the state still added more people than any of its New England neighbors and more even than much larger New York state, according to the new population estimates.

The nearly 100,000 people that the Census Bureau estimates that Connecticut added between 2000 and 2004 is only 18,000 below the state's population growth between 1990 and 2000, when Connecticut was one of the nation's slowest growing states.

During the first three years of the decade, between July 2000 and July 2003, the state added more than 20,000 people each year. The Census Bureau said that growth moderated during the past year, as Connecticut added roughly 16,600 people, a 0.5 percent gain, between July 2003 and July 2004.

That population growth compared to 14,600 people in New York and 4,500 in Rhode Island. Massachusetts lost about 4,000 people, making it the only state to suffer a population decline last year, according to the estimates.

"Connecticut doesn't look like the rest of New England," said Orlando Rodriguez, a demographic researcher at the Center for Population Research at the University of Connecticut. "It's not. It's more like New Jersey."

Connecticut's gains, however, were a fraction of those in the fastest growing states; Nevada added about 92,000 people in the past year, growing by 4.1 percent, the fastest percentage growth in the nation.

Connecticut's population gains are being driven by the strong growth among Latinos and Asians, who together are accounting for much of the state's growth, census estimates released earlier this year show. Their gains are likely a combination of people migrating to Connecticut from abroad and from other states, particularly the New York City area, as well as births in Connecticut, experts say.

"Connecticut seems to be geographically a good place [for Asians] because it is close to New York," said Angela Rola, director of the Asian-American Cultural Center at UConn...

Please search the Hartford Courant archives for the remainder of this story.

Statistics Suggest Problems In Future For Connecticut; Glimpse of state's population in 2030 shows aging, segregation 
DAY
By Karin Crompton   
Published on 5/16/2007
 
For the next 25 years, Connecticut's population will keep getting older and more segregated, a state data center concludes in projections released today...

“The baby boomers didn't have enough kids to support them in retirement, is what it boils down to,” said Orlando Rodriguez, manager of the Connecticut State Data Center, which released the projections today. “We need to make up the shortfall somewhere...”

“Whoa!” he yelped over the phone, clicking on the town of Lyme. Its total dependency ratio is projected to reach 110 by 2030 — every 100 working people in Lyme will have to support 110 retirees.

But these are statistics, after all.

“This is a wealthy retirement community, so that may not mean anything,” he said.

Overall, the state is projected to gain just three new residents for every 1,000 existing residents annually until 2030. Locally, the numbers foretell much the same. New London County's total population is projected to grow at a rate of 0.02 percent by 2030, down from 0.20 percent in 2005.

Some of the more startling projections include:

• Sprague's median age, which was 43.2 in 2005, will climb to 65.9 in 2030

• Waterford's population drops from 18,303 in 2005 to 16,758 in 2030.

• East Lyme, considered a hub for 55-and-older housing, is projected to see a decrease in the population's median age, from 43 in 2005 to 40.7 in 2030.

Rodriguez is quick to point out that the projections are different from predictions.

“We look at the past and we do not take into account anything that will happen in the future,” he said. “It's not an economic forecast — if the (sub) base closes, they put in an Ikea, build 100 houses ... It's not like that.”

Rodriguez said the data represents “one scenario. This may happen, not that it will happen...”

•••••

The Center groups the state's 169 municipalities into five categories: rural, suburban, urban core, urban periphery and wealthy. The definitions for each category come from a combination of population density (people per square mile), median family income and the percentage of the population that falls under the poverty threshold...

While race was not used to determine categories, the Center concludes that the state's minorities are most concentrated in the urban centers, or “urban core” towns.

While the urban core classification accounted for 19 percent of the state's population in 2000, the Center reports, more than half of the state's blacks and Hispanics lived there. At the same time, more than half of the state's white population lived in towns that were at least 90 percent white.

Statewide in 2000, 78 percent of towns were at least 90 percent white.

“I think one of the leading misconceptions is that Connecticut is a racially diverse state,” said Rodriguez, who moved here from New Orleans in 2002. “People say a quarter of the population is minorities and it's the same nationwide. That may be true, but that quarter is limited to seven towns in the state. So our minorities are segregated.”

The population projections can be seen at ctsdc.uconn.edu/Projections-Towns/townList-css.html.

The town listings by category can be seen at  http://www.ctsdc.uconn.edu/Projections-Towns/groups_5CTs.html

 
Please search the New London DAY archives for the remainder of this story.