Increase in four-county area is only about half of normal growth, Census shows.
Population growth in the four-county Hickory area was only about 40 percent of what it was a decade ago, another sign the recession continues to pound the region.After seeing a 16.9 percent increase in residents between 1990 and 2000, new census data for the Hickory-Morganton-Lenoir Metropolitan Statistical Area shows only a 6.9 percent increase from 2000 to 2010.
Blame the economy, said John Tippett, planning director for the Western Piedmont Council of Governments, which analyzes census data for the region.Population is still growing, but sometimes it creeps and sometimes it leaps, mirroring the economy is this area, where manufacturing has gone through bust-and-boom cycles.The area is now in tough economic straits because of declines in the furniture and textile industries and has an unemployment rate of 12.4 percent, one of the highest in the state.
The same high-and-low population growth cycle hit the area during the 1980s, when another major recession sent residents looking elsewhere for jobs.Here is a look at the recent regional population trends, according to the U.S. Census. The combined numbers are for Catawba, Caldwell, Alexander and Burke counties:
1980: +18.9 percent
1990: +8.1 percent
2000: +16.9 percent
2010: + 6.9 percent
Planners in North Carolina generally expect to see a growth rate of 1 to 1.5 percent annually, which would amount to a 10 to 15 percent population increase between the federal censuses, which is done every decade.By that standard, the region grew about half the expected rate.
The state as a whole grew 19 percent – more than twice the rate in the Hickory-Morganton-Lenoir MSA.Mecklenburg County, by comparison, grew 32.2 percent and Union County – a booming commuting suburb for Charlotte jobs, grew almost 63 percent. Gaston, also hurt by job losses, grew only 8.3 percent.”The loss of jobs, primarily in manufacturing, is behind the slow growth,” Tippett said. “When jobs go away, people go away.”
He said planners were relieved the region did not lose population, although a handful of small towns in the four-county MSA did.”Despite all the job losses we’ve had, to end up in the positive (growth) column is pretty good,” Tippett said.The 1990s were a strong-growth period, especially in Catawba, where Hickory is located. That county saw its population increase almost 20 percent as the fiber-optic industry grew, bringing with it more homes and more ancillary service jobs.
Now, however, the labor force has shrunk by 15,127 jobs since the recession hit about 2 1/2 years ago, said Taylor Dellinger, data analyst with the council of governments.Other trends documented in the new census numbers are a decline in percentage of white residents in the region and a growth in Hispanics.There are more white residents in each of the four counties than 10 years ago, but their percentage of the entire population has declined, dropping from 92 percent in 2000 to 89.6 percent in 2010 in Alexander County. In Catawba County, whites dropped from 85 percent in 2000 to 81.7 percent in 2010.
Hispanics grew by about 2 percentage points in the four counties, ranging currently from a low of 4.3 percent in Alexander County to a high of 8.4 percent in Catawba.The percentage of black residents stayed roughly the same, ranging from 4.9 percent in Caldwell County to 8.4 percent in Catawba.
By Dianne Straley
Posted: Sunday, Mar. 13, 2011
