Nevada grows despite recession, housing bust

By Haya El Nasser, USA TODAYUpdated 12m ago |

Despite being hammered by the recession and housing bust that created record unemployment and foreclosures, the Las Vegas area continued to gain people at a phenomenal rate.

Las Vegas grew 22% in the last decade, despite being hit hard by foreclosures, new Census data show.

Clark, the state's largest county and home to Las Vegas and booming suburban cities, grew 42% to 1.95 million since 2000, according to 2010 Census data released Thursday.

Sin City itself grew 22% to 583,756. Henderson has surpassed Reno as the state's second-largest city with almost 258,000 people. North Las Vegas, fourth-largest at 216,961, is on the verge of passing Reno (225,221).

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"Despite all the pronouncements of Las Vegas' demise, it has retained most of its population growth from the decade and ensured that the state of Nevada will gain a congressional seat," says Robert Lang, urban expert at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.

Census counts are used to allocate seats in the House of Representatives and to redraw state and local political districts.

Nevada is on the cusp of becoming a "majority-minority" state because whites who are not Hispanic make up 54% of the population, compared with 65% in 2000.

The state's child population is dominated by minorities, according to analysis by William Frey, demographer at the Brookings Institution.

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Nevada's Hispanic population grew 82% to almost 717,000. Hispanics make up 27% of the population, up from 20% in 2000. Non-Hispanic Asians more than doubled to about 191,000 and make up more than 7% of the population. Non-Hispanic blacks grew 58% to more than 208,000.

Lang says Nevada held on to its population gains largely because the recession "was so large and universal that it froze people in place even if there were no jobs."

State unemployment is above 14%, the highest in the country — even higher than industry-battered Michigan.

"Henderson is one of the epicenters of the housing collapse," Lang says. "Yet, Henderson grew tremendously."

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