Census: Immigrants stabilize big-city populations

[DeepModem Mom]

Source: Associated Press

Census: Immigrants stabilize big-city populations
April 5, 2007


Immigrants and advocates march to New York's City Hall on March 14 as they rally for immigration reform.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Without immigrants pouring into the nation's big metro areas, places such as New York, Los Angeles and Boston would be losing population.

Many smaller areas, including Battle Creek, Michigan, Ames, Iowa, and Corvallis, Oregon, would lose people as well, according to population estimates released Thursday by the Census Bureau.

"Immigrants are filling the void as domestic migrants are seeking opportunities in other places," said Mark Mather, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau, a private research organization.

The New York metro area, which includes suburbs in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, added 1 million immigrants from 2000 to 2006. Without those immigrants, the region would have lost nearly 600,000 people.

Without immigration, the Los Angeles, California, metro area would have lost more than 200,000, the San Francisco, California, area would have lost 188,000 and the Boston, Massachusetts, area would have lost 101,000....

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/05/metro.population.ap/index.html

[EVDebs]

1. Only problem is immigrants and low-wage natives keep wages down

and provide 'free market' fodder for GOP arguments. Please read Screwed by Thom Hartmann, and the article below. Maybe it's time to slow down the immigration rates is all I'm saying. Let the country catch up so to speak.

The Hard Truth of Immigration
No society has a boundless capacity to accept newcomers, especially when many of them are poor or unskilled workers.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8100266/site/newsweek/

This is NOT saying immigration should stop, just that liberals need to consider the sustainablility of the current rates. I won't go into how the US population is already past its 'footprint' or that the 1950 population is what some consider the US's 'steady state'.

[OregonBlue]

2. Agreed. Why does everyone assume that "growing" cities is a good thing.

We are choking the planet with expansion and overpopulation but no one will address overpopulation as the real problem. It's all about growth.

[The2ndWheel]

3. Because you can only get to the future by growing

I agree with you completely, but we're too far into the game to not grow everything. It's growth or bust at this point. If we have to, we will destroy the habitat to save ourselves. I know, I know, it sounds crazy. It's just that we're not going to voluntarily stop. We will do anything we have to to get there.