U. S. Census: The official figure is now 281 million. Significantly higher than originally forecast by Census Bureau

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http://www.star-telegram.com/news/doc/1047/1:AOLNEWS1/1:AOLNEWS11228100.html

Updated: Thursday, Dec. 28, 2000 at 22:23 CST

Texas becomes 2nd most populous state By Jeff Claassen Star-Telegram Staff Writer

Rapid growth in Texas and other Sun Belt states in the 1990s continued to pull the country's population and political centers south and west, according to the first batch of Census 2000 figures, released Thursday.

Texas has surpassed New York to become the nation's second most populous state. The Lone Star State has 20.8 million people, about 4 million more than in 1990, and will have two more seats in the 2002 Congress.

"This shows for Texas a decade of unprecedented growth," said Steve Murdock, director of the Texas State Data Center, the state's census repository. "One in eight new Americans are Texans. One in four are Californians or Texans."

Texas has about 2 million more people than New York, and about 13 million fewer than California.

The Census Bureau released the population figures three days before the legal deadline for reassigning the 435 seats in the House based on each state's share of the national population.

Twelve House seats will be reallocated for the midterm congressional elections, almost all of them shifting from the Northeast and Upper Midwest to the South and West.

Eight states, all in the South or West, gained seats. Arizona, Florida and Georgia joined Texas in adding two. Texas will have 32.

California, Nevada, Colorado and North Carolina each gained one seat.

Pennsylvania and New York each lost two seats. Connecticut, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma and Mississippi lost one each.

"For Republicans, the South has become a political base, and those states gained a net of six new House seats and votes in the Electoral College," said Earl Black, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston.

"Now the underlying strategy for Republicans will be to sweep the South again. If they do that, they only have to win 30 percent of the electoral votes everywhere else."

But any Republican gains could be short-lived, said Bruce Buchanan, a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin who specializes in presidential politics.

"There are counter-trends in the Sun Belt states, including the rise in the Hispanic vote and the growing number of political independents," he said. "It's hard to say if Republicans benefit more than Democrats because demographic shifts can really change things."

Texas was at the center of the most dramatic population shifts of the 1990s.

Among large states, only California added more people, 4.1 million compared with Texas' 3.9 million. On a percentage basis, only Florida's 23.5 percent increase outpaced Texas' 22.8 percent growth.

The fastest growth among all states came in Nevada, where the population ballooned by 66.3 percent and reached almost 2 million.

The population also increased rapidly in other Western mountain states, including Colorado, Idaho and Utah. Californians fleeing a prolonged recession and high cost of living were a large part of that increase, Murdock said.

Only the District of Columbia lost population. Growth was 4 percent or less during the 1990s in Connecticut, Maine, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Although the migration patterns have been building for years, officials were still surprised at the size of the growth in Texas and the nation.

Texas' Census 2000 population count outpaced even the highest pre-census estimates by about 400,000 people. On Thursday, the Census Bureau's Population Clock, an Internet service based on earlier estimates, pegged the country's population at 276 million. The official figure is now 281 million.

"It was a big jump," Census Director Kenneth Prewitt said at a morning news conference.

The larger number may be the result of a more accurate count than in 1990 or from faulty pre- census estimates of the population of undocumented immigrants and other groups, Murdock and Prewitt said.

Census statistics to be released in the spring will provide details about the race, ethnicity and age of Americans, and about smaller areas such as counties, cities and census tracts.

Those figures are expected to show that Texas' growth was paced by suburban areas in North Texas and Houston, by Austin and its neighboring cities, and by cities in the Rio Grande Valley.

Two of those areas are likely to get the state's new House seats. In April, the Legislature will start drawing new legislative districts using census statistics.

The local population is booming most in Northeast Tarrant County, the Alliance Corridor, north of Fort Worth and into southern Denton County, and Mansfield in south Tarrant County, according to pre-census estimates by local agencies.

In Mansfield, the property tax base of $1.4 billion has experienced double-digit percentage gains in each of the past three years.

The city issued more than 900 residential construction permits in 2000, twice as many as in 1996, City Planning Director Felix Wong said. At the same time, commercial construction permits increased 150 percent, to about 80 this year.

"We anticipate continued dramatic growth in the future," Finance Director Pete Phillis said. "It's an exciting time for Mansfield."

New industries and new subdivisions built for people fleeing traffic and crowding in Dallas and Tarrant counties have propelled Denton County's population growth, County Judge Scott Armey said.

"That brings with it a lot of challenges, obviously, when we have such a fast-growing area ... roads, sewers, housing and planning for that," Armey said. "A number of our cities here in Denton County are dealing with those challenges of growth."

Staff writer Mike Lee and correspondent Robert Cadwallader contributed to this report.

Jeff Claassen, (817) 390-7710

-- K (infosurf@yahoo.com), December 29, 2000


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