[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

within the usa, and the accompanying senses of loss and opportunity,
played a role in individual, family and collective experiences, and was
reflected in the arts, for example in Lisa Alther s novels Kinflicks (1976)
and Original Sin (1981), in which characters repeated her move from
Tennessee to the North. Migration was largely driven by economic
opportunity, with retirement proving an important second strand. The
major shift in population was from the Rustbelt of parts of the North-
East and Mid-West to the Sunbelt of the West and South-West, as well
as to Florida and North Carolina. The rate of job changes, which
included the creation of more than two million jobs annually between
1994 and 2000, contributed to this movement. Earlier, in the
1950s 1970s, there had been major changes in the distribution of
manufacturing, which became a more national activity, reducing the
previous emphasis on the North-East and the Mid-West. Whereas New
York had been the state with the most manufacturing employment in
1947, California (8th in 1947) held the top place in 1982. In the same
period, Texas rose from 14th to 5th in manufacturing terms, North
Carolina from 12th to 8th, Georgia from 15th to 12th, and South
Carolina from 20th to 18th.
In California, which benefited greatly from the move of jobs, the
population in millions rose from 5.7 in 1930 to 15.8 in 1960, 32.4 in
1996 and 36 in 2004, when it was the world s eighth biggest economy;
it is due to rise to 48 million in 2030. In the years 1994 2003 there
were about 10 million migrants into the state. Other states have seen
significant growth, even if only in percentage terms, The population of
Oregon, for example, rose from 2.2 million in 1973 to 3.6 million in
2004. Part of this growth stems from movement from California, a
shift that has also affected Colorado, where the population of the
Denver metropolitan area rose by more than 8 per cent in the years
2000 04, while Greeley, Colorado, was one of the fastest growing
communities in the country.
Trends in manufacturing and retirement were not the sole issues at
stake. The problems of agriculture, with its declining labour require-
ments, and the crisis of many small towns, as warehousing, retail, food
58 a l t e r e d s t a t e s
processing and light industry were centralized, further accentuated the
population movements between and within regions. The general
impression was of a movement to the coasts, although there were
many exceptions, such as the growth in the Atlanta, Las Vegas, Phoenix
and Raleigh-Durham areas. From 1960 the population of the greater
Phoenix area grew by an average of 47 per cent each decade, while
between 1990 and 2003 Austin s population grew by 63 per cent to 1.4
million. Austin s rise reflected its success in high-technology industries.
One consequence was the growth in office construction and revenues.
In 2005 projections for annual office gross-revenue growth over the
next five years were 5.6 per cent for Austin. Predictions at or close to 5
per cent were also made for San Francisco, Orange County, California,
Phoenix and San Diego; whereas, for the Rustbelt, projections for less
than 2.2 per cent were made for Pittsburgh, Dayton, Cincinnati, Rochester
and Detroit. Indeed, between the censuses of 1990 and 2000, Detroit
lost 7.5 per cent of its population and Pittsburgh 9.6 per cent.
Despite growth in Phoenix, Austin and other cities, much of the
hinterland suffered relative population decline and some of it, for
example much of the Great Plains, particularly the Dakotas, absolute
decline. Yet the cost of housing there was relatively low, and the
Internet had lessened the inaccessibility of these areas. The movement
to the coasts was the consequence of a number of factors, including the
attraction of the knowledge-economics, economic opportunities and
sense of buzz, in coastal California and New York City, and also the lure
of living near the water, for example on the Gulf Coast. Between 1980
and 2003 the numbers living in the country s coastal counties rose to
about 153 million, an increase of about 33 million. This led to a building
boom in these areas, much of which was exposed to floods. Indeed, in
2005 approximately two million people left Louisiana, Mississippi and
Alabama as a result of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Population changes fed directly into electoral politics, leading to
shifts in representation at the federal and state levels. This provided
opportunities for re-districting, and thus for the use of political power.
For example, the census of 2000 was followed in Tennessee by a
redrawing of district boundaries by the Democrat-controlled legisla-
ture in order to limit Republican representation.
c ha ngi ng p e op l e 59
The rise in the national population was caused by falling death rates,
with their consequence in terms of rising life expectancy, as well as to
birth rates higher than in Europe and to immigration. All of these
factors were variable and interacting, and this affected population
movements. For example, restrictions on immigration from the 1920s,
and the impact of the economic crisis of the 1930s, was such that,
between 1930 and 1950, the American population increased by only 14
per cent, its lowest percentage rate ever. In contrast, in the 1990s and
2000s growth rates were particularly high. As a result, by the early
2000s two-thirds of the population growth was natural increase,
whereas, in Europe, it was largely due to immigration.
The American birth rate was also higher than that of many coun-
tries in the developing world, including economic rivals such as Brazil,
China and South Korea. In 2000 the median age was 35, lower than that
in most of Europe, a consequence of the birth rate and the fact that
immigrants tended to be relatively young. By 2050 it is projected to be [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]