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Yolo County and CA population growth projected to stall for decades

CA forecasts extremely slow population growth for next 4 decades for  Yolo County and California.

by Colin Walsh

The state of California Department of Finance released an update to its state population projections on July 19, 2023. These projections are based on Census 2020 data and demographic analysis. (link)

The state estimates the current population of California is 38,990,487 and that the population will increase to 39,508,492 by 2060. That is only a little over 500,000 or just slightly over a 1% increase in a 37 year period. This is essentially a year-over-year zero growth rate for the State of CA.

This halt to population growth in CA comes after a century of rapid growth that transformed CA from a sparsely populated state to the most populous state in the country. This projected lack of growth comes after 2 years of slight decline in population where the state lost more than ½ million people between 2020 and 2023.

CA pop growth


Closer analysis shows an estimated peak population in 2044 of 40,155,497. This projected 1.2 million increase over today’s population is still only a 3% increase in the total state population.

Pop growth detail

Yolo County

Yolo County’s current estimated population is 223,467 and it is projected to grow to 243,410 in 2060. This represents growth of 19,943 new Yolo County residents or 9% growth over the next 37 years for the county. The fastest year over year population growth for Yolo is projected to be .5% from 2031 – 2032 and 2034 – 2035.

Yolo pop growth

Year over year yolo

The California State Department of Finance is projecting slow but steady growth for Yolo County of between .4% and .5% or less from now through 2037, at which point growth will taper off and even decline before 2060. In the next decade, all of Yolo County is only projected to increase in population by 11,389.

Yolo year over year no.

 

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Comments

57 responses to “Yolo County and CA population growth projected to stall for decades”

  1. Alan C. Miller

    Regarding: “Anyone else remember Steve Inness, what a good person he was? Maybe if Davis could just have given him his own place and a little income, he would still be with us today.”
    I do remember Steve Inness, what a good person he was. I think it’s really cheap, misguided and smarmy of you to imply that somehow “Davis” could have ‘saved’ him by ‘giving’ him money and a place to live. Who, exactly, is “Davis” in your scenario? Through what program should “Davis” have intervened?
    I am all for more resources to help the mentally ill. Much more.
    But instead what “Davis” does is allow drug addicts and the mentally ill to live along the railroad tracks. Is this compassion? Let me add two facts and then ask again. There have been at least a dozen so-called ‘homeless’ and/or mentally people who have been killed on the railroad right-of-way over the last few decades, some from suicide, some from inebriation, some not altogether clear why.
    In the last year there have been two major ‘homeless camp’ infernoes that were both so severe that they destroyed the nearby wiring for the Union Pacific railroad signalling, costing $100,000’s in repairs and delays. With all this death and destruction, is allowing the so-called ‘homeless’ to camp adjacent to something that has killed several of them . . . um . . . compassionate ?
    Perhaps “Davis” should have “done something” ? Or were you just trying to make “Davis” feel guilty about a suicide because “Davis” didn’t save him? In retrospect. After the fact.
    In the future, we’ll be sure to use the Suicide Prediction Atomitron 5000 to identify Davis residents in peril, and give them money and a house.
    This rant and sarcasm is in no way meant to disrespect the individual originally identified, but rather to disrespect the idea that “Davis” is able to identify and save individuals from themselves by giving them money, and that somehow “Davis” could have saved this one person. Further, this rant is meant to point out that allowing the so-called ‘homeless’ to ‘live’ adjacent to large, fast-moving, multi-ton steel objects is a bad idea and not compassionate.

    Reply
  2. Ron O

    Construction of The Cannery did not lower housing prices.
    I don’t know if there is a given “number” of (additional) houses that would, or by how much. It’s not actually possible to determine that in the first place, since those attempting to move to a given area generally weigh the cost vs. benefit before doing so. They also consider housing in surrounding communities.
    But where I differ with someone like Nick is that I will generally choose preservation of farmland and open space, over an attempt to lower housing prices by pursuing sprawl. By far, actually.
    And more recently, I’ve finally realized that pursuit of jobs and economic development is the primary driver of housing demand in the first place. I realize this seems obvious, but it’s rarely mentioned by those concerned about housing prices/demand. (See the tech industry in “Silicon Valley”, for example.)
    And again, what we’re talking about here is really just a “re-shuffling” of existing population within California. Usually, folks moving from more expensive (but environmentally-superior areas) to valley sprawl.
    I’m also fine with some places being more-expensive than other places. I don’t expect Tiburon, for example, to build me a cheap house (much as I’d like to live there). Truth be told, Tiburon itself is “more important” than my desire to live there.
    I’m inspired to see wealthy communities fight back against continued growth and sprawl. But I’m not referring to Davis in regard to that, as it’s not particularly wealthy or expensive in the first place. (As I recall, Davis housing prices are right-around the state median.)
    And again, if someone can’t afford a $700K Stanley Davis house, I’m not sure what to say – other than wait until you can actually do so.
    I myself may try to move back to “where I came from” at some point, if I’m ever able to do so. But I don’t want that location to change for “my” sake.

    Reply
  3. Nick Schmalenberger

    People say Nishi wasn’t “rejected” either, but effectively it was by rejecting the Olive Drive connection and expecting the project to take on negotiation with the railroad instead of the city taking that on. I see there is a new project since May called the Nishi Promenade doing exactly this, I wish them luck. It’s very similar to how when the University wanted to build housing west of Highway 113, the wicked West Davis Neighbors (I lived in West Davis at the time) rejected any connection to Russell Boulevard, to the point of physical fighting in the Emerson Junior High auditorium. Luckily though the University was able to build their housing in spite of the opposition, and the West Davis Neighbors got their way of not being connected to their nice new neighbors, their loss in my opinion.
    The railroads in the US since their beginning are another huge problem of capitalism, they need to be nationalized and charge the freights running on them enough to support passenger rail service that actually has priority over freight trains, mandate electrification, mandate living wages, fair schedules, and benefits to all workers, and give grants to build grade separation for safe crossing of train tracks. Davis could work with other cities in California to accomplish this, if Davis doesn’t do like they did in rejecting SMUD and sticking with PG&E, or do like they did in rejecting Davisgig for municipal fiber Internet in favor of another private cable TV company.
    I remember someone crossing the tracks in a vehicle was struck and killed by a train at the very crossing in question for Nishi. Many more people have been killed on foot around the east end of Olive Drive. I think there’s still a plan to build a bike/pedestrian undercrossing from Olive to the train station that would be an easy connection to the recent Pole Line bridge ramp. This is great, every place needs more of this, and we need to make the freights pay for it without delay. As for all the new housing proposed for downtown, it remains to be seen how it will turn out to be undermined.

    Reply
  4. Nick Schmalenberger

    The reason I suggested a place to live and little income would have helped Steve Inness, is that’s what he told me he wanted. We talked about it at a picnic at Slide Hill Park once, he suggested essentially what is now being called Universal Basic Income. Even when he had a place to live, it was never really secure and I think this was probably a major part of his depression. There is some low income housing in Davis, and other cities like where I live now have actual public housing. We need more of that, and give it to the people like Steve so they actually have a better option than living in a tent next to train tracks and maybe get stabbed by a homicidal maniac or commit suicide. Another great time I had with Steve was one New Years Eve when I lived on Haussler Drive, we biked to Carls Jr and used some coupons there. I hope he’s in a better place now.

    Reply
  5. Nick Schmalenberger

    Steve was also depressed because even though he was helping the Davis High School Robotics Team, they didn’t bring him along to the competition in St Louis in 2015 or even give him a tshirt. In my emails with him at the time I offered to let him stay with me at my apartment in San Mateo, but I didn’t go get him either although I seem to remember offering to buy him a train ticket it wasn’t a great plan I guess. I failed him and Davis failed him.

    Reply
  6. Ron O

    I was not familiar with the story of Steve Inness, but there is no need to explain the situation to me, here.
    But some might say that UCD fails its own students via their pursuit of continuous enrollment growth (including pursuit of International, non-resident students), without providing housing for them on campus.
    Some might say that UCD failed the city itself, as a result. Some might say that they actually take advantage of the city, as well as those who might otherwise move to the city.
    Some might even say that UCD failed the student who recently stabbed three people in Davis (two of them fatally), by simply expelling him for failing grades – and nothing more. “Sink or Swim”, as it were. (Turns out that he increasingly wasn’t able to swim.)
    Now, I don’t know who “some” are, but the thoughts have crossed my mind at least.

    Reply
  7. Nick Schmalenberger

    UCD is what brings curious creative people to the town from around the world. Davisites should all want to have those people as neighbors in every neighborhood if they value cultural diversity and education, and do everything for the town to stay connected with the university wherever possible. Instead though, the university HAS built housing on campus, and in the case of West Village and Nishi it’s turned out to be only connected to the university and NOT the town, because of townspeople’s insistence that such connections would hurt them and cause problems 😦
    Anyone else remember Bob and Dorothy Laben? Their house could hardly have been closer to the university, and they were great supporters of many students and myself too as a teenager. I biked to their house to help Bob get food from State Market, Nugget, and Rays to take to the Yolo County Food Bank, and he told me about his animal science work at the university. There’s now a dorm, ON campus, named after him.

    Reply

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