Florida growth outpaces national trend

By Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY
Posted 9m ago |

Florida's 70-year growth streak could not be broken despite a dramatic downturn in recent years.

Most of Florida's largest counties and cities grew more rapidly than the nation since 2000, according to 2010 Census data released Thursday.

"It's a story of two different half-decades," says Stanley Smith, director of the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Florida. "The first half was so great that it made up for any decline of the past few years."

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Despite record foreclosures and high unemployment, Florida still grew 17.6% to 18.8 million, well above the 9.7% national rate.

It's a testament to the runaway growth the state enjoyed in the early 2000s, which slowed in 2007 and came to a screeching halt in 2008. Annual growth that had peaked at 2.3% in 2005 fell to 0.5% in 2009 and 0.7% in 2010.

Flagler County, north of Daytona Beach, was the fastest-growing county, up 92% to 95,696. Sumter County, home of The Villages retirement community in central Florida, grew 75% to 93,420, and Osceola County, just south of Orlando, grew 56% to 268,685.

Even larger and more densely developed areas gained: Miami-Dade, the largest county, up 11% to 2.5 million; Jacksonville, the largest city, up almost 12% to 821,784.

St. Petersburg and its county, Pinellas, were among the rare decliners. The state's fourth-largest city lost 1.4% of its population since 2000, down to 245,000. Pinellas fell 0.5% to 916,542.

"Pinellas is by far the most densely-populated county in the state," Smith says. "There's not much room for any more expansion."

The county also has a large elderly population and virtually all of the decline came from deaths outnumbering births.

Florida's share of non-Hispanic whites declined, growing only 4% vs. 10.4% the previous decade, says William Frey, demographer at the Brookings Institution. White children now are in the minority.

Most of the growth came from Hispanics (up 57.4% to 4.2 million) but the non-Hispanic black population also increased (26% to 2.85 million). Broward, Palm Beach and Orange counties showed the biggest increases in African Americans, Frey says.

Much of the gains are a result of a black return migration to the South, he says.

"If it weren't for Hispanics and blacks, Florida would've had a truly disastrous decade," Frey says. "Even in a bad decade, minority populations continue to grow, which says a lot about the continued diversity in Florida's future."

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