The Last Public Policy Taboo, Part 4

It was a big week for the public policy issue that dare not speak its name.

In this series [see Parts 1, 2, and 3], I’ve been developing this idea:  Minnesota’s policy elite needs to start working on contingency plans for a stagnant population, rather than the population boom they are counting on.

Bloomberg reports that for the 12 months ended June 2013, America saw the fewest births since 1998.  The birth rate also fell, setting a new all-time low.  Meanwhile, the nation set a record for the most deaths in a year.  We are quickly reaching the point where—but for immigration—America’s population would actually be shrinking.

Of course, not all areas are equal.  The nation’s fastest growing city is oil-boom-town Williston, North Dakota.  Houston, America’s energy hub, was the fastest growing large city.  In fact, most of the fastest growing communities—from Texas to Wyoming to North Dakota—are fueled by the booming fossil fuel energy economy.  As Bloomberg reports,

“When the economy is slow, people will go where there are jobs.”

Adding,

“Mining, quarrying, and oil-and-gas extraction industries were the most rapidly growing part of our nation’s economy over the last several years,” Census Bureau Director John Thompson said in a statement.  “A major reason was the energy boom on the [Great] Plains.”

However, the honor of the fastest growing metro area goes to The Villages, the central Florida retirement community.

We are constantly told that Republicans are finished.  In the words of the Washington Post, it’s about "how the aging of America is hurting the Republican Party."  But this week, Gallup reports that those seniors are increasingly aligning with the Republican Party.  If America’s only growth areas are oil workers and seasoned citizens, I like the GOP’s chances.

Minneapolis-St. Paul
From the Census of 2000 to the 2010 edition, the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area gained more than 285,000 people.  Now we are told that in the three years since the last census, the metro area has improbably gained more than 100,000 people.  If true, this change would mean that local population growth is accelerating, at a time of falling birthrates and while the state economy is shedding jobs.

Despite the examples of booming populations in North and South Dakota, and other Great Plains locations, our local elites will imagine seeing a vindication for their urban-centric development strategy in these latest census figures.  In the meantime, they will allow Minnesota’s opportunities in mining [iron and copper-nickel], quarrying [sand], and oil-gas [pipelines and refining] to go begging.