Colorado ranks 11th in growth - But small increase in population lags neighboring states / with CAIR commentary

By John Aguilar, Rocky Mountain News

December 22, 2005

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4334452,00.html

Another year of listless population growth left Colorado trailing several neighboring states, according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau released Wednesday.

Colorado, with a 1.4 percent increase, ranked 11th in population growth nationally from July 2004 to last July, while Nevada, Arizona, Idaho and Utah all grabbed spots at the top of the list....

While slightly higher than the 1.1 percent and 1.2 percent growth rates of the previous two years, Colorado's latest estimates are a far cry from the 1990s, when population surges regularly hit 3 percent and lawmakers said dealing with runaway growth was their top concern....

The Census Bureau said Colorado added 63,356 new residents from July 2004 to last July and now has a population of 4,665,177.

Unlike most years, natural population growth - births minus deaths - exceeded the net number of people migrating into Colorado this year, particularly those coming from other states.

Of the 24,000 net migrants who moved to Colorado last year, three- fourths came from outside the United States, the Census Bureau estimated.

Tucker Hart Adams, U.S. Bank's chief economist for the Rocky Mountain region, said that reflects the lingering effects of a job downturn that hit Colorado particularly hard and crippled efforts to attract highly skilled, white-collar workers from other states....

...Garner said that with the worst over and the state's employment picture expected to match the peak levels of 2001 in the next few months, Colorado's population should begin growing at a healthier rate.

"We expect population to grow a little bit faster the rest of the decade as job growth picks up," Garner said.

This year, Colorado moved up to 11th place nationally in population growth, compared with 14th place last year and 17th place in 2003....

But Colorado still comes nowhere near matching the torrid growth rates of some of its neighbors....

On the move

Colorado's population grew by 1.4 percent this year, adding more than 63,000 residents. How the state stacks up with the rest of the nation:

1. Nevada 3.5 percent

2. Arizona 3.5 percent*

3. Idaho 2.4 percent

4. Florida 2.3 percent

5. Utah 2.0 percent

11. Colorado 1.4 percent

48. Massachusetts -0.1 percent

49. New York -0.1 percent

50. Rhode Island -0.3 percent

51. Washington, D.C. -0.7 percent

* Arizona's rate is slightly below Nevada's.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

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