South, West, and Everything Else
29th December 2010
Read it. People are moving from Blue to Red.
The South is our largest region. For the first time, it now has more population than the Northeast and Midwest combined. The South has nearly 115 million people, the Northeast 55 million, and the Midwest 67 million. The West is now the second-largest region, with 72 million, surpassing the Midwest in the ten years since the 2000 census. The South added more population from 2000-2010 (14.3 million) than the three other regions combined.
No state in either the Midwest or Northeast grew faster than the national growth rate. No state in the West grew slower than the national growth rate. Montana grew at exactly the national growth rate of 9.7 percent. California was the second-slowest growing Western state at 10 percent, a growth rate which would be remarkable for a Midwestern or Northeastern state.
These figures are distorted somewhat by the fact that they count Texas as in the South; I’d put it in the West, myself.