Los Angeles County has an enormous population.

For powerful evidence, see a U.S. map (pictured below) that’s been shared widely on social media in recent weeks.

It depicts in blue the states with fewer than Los Angeles County’s roughly 10.2 million people. That is all but six (excluding California).

The comparison would also be stark using two other California regions. Both the San Francisco Bay Area and the Central Valley are estimated to have more than seven million people, making them more heavily populated than all but 11 or so states.

California’s total population is now more than 39 million.

That sounds like a lot, but it reflects a significant slowing of growth since 2000, when there were about 34 million people.

Some anti-growth groups have argued that California can’t handle more people. They commonly cite the state’s recurrent water shortages. But experts have downplayed those worries.

“You could basically double California’s population if we use the same per capita urban water use as Spain,” Jay R. Lund, head of the Center for Watershed Sciences at U.C. Davis, once told the Sacramento Bee.

Many demographers talk about an opposite worry: that California isn’t growing fast enough.

A map of the U.S. that colors in blue every state with a smaller population than Los Angeles County has been shared widely on social media. (via Reddit)

The reasons for the slowdown are myriad, but the housing crisis appears to be playing an increasing role.



California’s brutal shortage of homes — owing in part to regulatory hurdles and not-in-my-backyard attitudes — has put living costs out of reach for many typical wage earners.

Dowell Myers, an urban growth specialist at U.S.C., cited the example of Orange County, where the median home price is now roughly $700,000.

The region’s population has been aging rapidly as millennials choose to make their lives in more affordable places. That’s created a shortage of young workers and a sinking tax base even as more retirees add greater demands for services.

“Orange County is really sucking wind,” Myers said. “The system works only if you supplement retirees with replacement people. And that’s the thing, it has to be the millennials.”

Gov. Jerry Brown this year signed a package of measures aimed at easing California’s housing crisis.

Hans Johnson, a demographer at the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, said the legislation broke new ground by offering incentives to cities that add homes while also penalizing those that don’t.

“I think it’s definitely a step in the right direction,” Johnson said.

He added, “The only thing worse than growing is not growing. There’s no shortage of places in the United States where you can look at population loss and see how detrimental that is.”

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