America's New Landscape
published December 23, 2008
By Haya El Nasser and Paul Overberg

The housing collapse and economic crisis are dramatically transforming the population and political landscape of the nation by ending the Sun Belt boom that dominated growth for a generation, according to Census Bureau estimates released Monday.

For the first time since the early 1970s, more people left Florida for other states than moved in during the 12 months ending July 1. Nevada, among the four fastest-growing states for 23 years in a row, slipped from No. 1 to No. 8. Michigan lost people for the third straight year.

Eight states would lose a seat in the House of Representatives if reapportionment were conducted today instead of after the decennial Census in 2010, according to an analysis by Election Data Services. Five states would gain a seat and Texas would add three.If these changes had been in place in 2008, Barack Obama's margin over John McCain in the Electoral College would have been 10 votes smaller.

The 435 House seats are reallocated every 10 years after the Census count of every person, including non-citizens and illegal immigrants.

The housing meltdown has turned migration flows on their heads. Of the top 20 fastest-growing states, all but four showed slower growth this year compared with last year and only one of the top 10 (Colorado) grew faster, according to an analysis by William Frey, demographer at the Brookings Institution.

"A giant share of it is housing," says Robert Lang, co-director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech. "One, you can't sell a house. You're stuck. Two, there's no job growth attracting people to those states." Lang says every previous recession had one thriving state or region that lured people. This time, no place is immune.

The turnabout in the fortunes of Florida and Nevada is striking. The first half of this decade, Florida was No. 1 in attracting people from other states; now it has more people going the other way. Nevada had begun to diversify its economy, which has been dominated by gambling, tourism and hospitality industries, but it was "too little, too late," Lang says.

Florida still grew overall because of births and immigration but "this is the smallest population increase we've seen," says Stan Smith, director of the bureau of economic and business research at the University of Florida. "It may be the biggest slowdown in the last 50 or 60 years."

The dismal real estate market may benefit states that have seen people head to other states for years. In New York, the number of people going to other states dropped by 7.1% and the number coming in went up 2%, according to Kenneth Johnson, demographer at the University of New Hampshire's Carsey Institute.

Utah was the fastest-growing state, most of the increase from a high birth rate and immigration.

Immigration is slowing almost everywhere, Johnson says. Nationally, immigration slipped 9.6% from the average annual rate this decade, he says.

Michigan and Rhode Island, which have the USA's worst unemployment, were the only states to lose population from 2007 to 2008.

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/yb/124686165