Minnesotans For Sustainability^©

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Sustainable Society:  A society that balances the environment, other life forms, and human interactions over an indefinite time period.

Urban Bloat

How Immigration Fuels Population Growth

 Jack Martin*
August 11, 2003

Introduction
The Bird's-Eye View
Large Metropolitan Areas: Immigrant Influx and Native-Born Exodus
    Table 1: Large Metropolitan Areas Population Change ―Native Born & Foreign Born 1990 – 2000
    Table 2: Four Consequences
Immigrant and Native-Born Influx
    Table 3: Native Born & Foreign Born Populations 1990 – 2000
Immigration's Impact on Mid-Sized Metropolitan Areas
    Table 4: Mid-Sized Metropolitan Areas Population Change ―Native Born & Foreign Born 1990 – 2000
Immigration's Impact on Smaller Metropolitan Areas
    Table 5: Smaller Metropolitan Areas Population Change ―Native Born & Foreign Born 1990 – 2000
Recommendations: Curtailing the Surge in Immigration
Conclusion
Notes

Introduction

The United States experienced record levels of immigration in the 1990s. Fifteen million immigrants settled in the U.S. legally and illegally during the decade. Factor in their children and the generally higher fertility rates among immigrant groups, and this single factor accounts, conservatively, for more than half the astounding 35 million increase in U.S. population in the 1990s.

Immigration at these levels has a significant impact on a variety of pressing national issues, such as school overcrowding, bankrupt public health care systems, the alarming number of children living in poverty, and deteriorating or inadequate infrastructure. For cities and regions experiencing particularly high levels of immigration-related population growth, no serious discussion of these issues can be undertaken without reexamining immigration policy.
 

The Bird's-Eye View

Immigration increased at more than six times the rate of increase for the native-born population. Nationwide, population increased by 13 percent over the 1990s. However, when the components of that increase are analyzed, it can be seen that the immigrant population1 increased 57.4 percent (from 19.8 million to 31.1 million), while the native-born population increased 9.3 percent (from 229.1 million to 250.3 million).

This division of the increase in the population identifies immigration as being directly responsible for more than one-third (35%) of the country's population increase during the 1990s. The most recent estimate by the Census Bureau indicates that, since the start of the new century, immigration is accounting for almost half (44%) of the population increase,2 without taking into account the additional impact resulting from the children born to immigrants after they arrive.

If our immigration policies remain unchanged, Census Bureau projections show that immigration will account for two-thirds of the staggering 135 million additional residents projected to be added our population during the first half of this century. In that context, discussing the future of American cities without addressing the impact of immigration is an exercise in futility.
 

Large Metropolitan Areas: Immigrant Influx and Native-Born Exodus

In all large cities in the United States where the population is increasing, immigration is fueling the increase. Of metro areas with populations of more than one million in 2000 and an increase in population of over 20 percent between 1990-2000, the rate of increase of the immigrant population is generally more than three times greater than the rate of increase in non-immigrant newcomers.

Many of the cities with the largest influx of immigrants are not increasing especially rapidly in total population because there are so many native-born residents moving out of those cities. That exodus of native-born residents dampens the overall net change. In five of those metropolitan areas,3 i.e., those in which the native-born population was less in 2000 than in 1990 (see Table 1), immigration accounted for all of the metropolitan area's population increase between 1990-2000, and then some. In all of the others, immigration accounted directly for more than half of the metropolitan area's population increase.4

The problems resulting from the demographic trends in those large immigrant-settlement cities relate to the population increase itself (immigration added more than 100,000 residents in each of these cities during the 1990s) and to the changing characteristics of the population, as immigrants displace or replace native-born residents. Those localities have acute problems associated with the influx of immigrants such as school overcrowding, insufficient low-income housing, and the strains on public education from educating large numbers of non-English-speaking children.

Table 1

Evidence of this problem may be seen in looking at 2000 Census data for the nation's two largest concentrations of immigrants: Los Angeles and New York City. As shown in Table 2 below, both of these metropolitan areas have elevated levels of children in families with income below the poverty level, who live in high-poverty neighborhoods, who are high school dropouts, and who have difficulty communicating in English.

Other examples of chronic immigration-related problems in these major cities include overcrowded housing, school crowding, and budgetary problems due to increasing outlays for services at the same time that tax collections stagnate in part because many of these new workers are earning subsistence wages and/or working off the books.
 

Table 2

Los Angeles County has the highest rate of severe crowded housing in the United States, at 15 percent, and experts say that the problem is driven by mass numbers of immigrants working for subsistence wages.5 So many people living in single-family homes strains services such as trash collection, schools, and public safety.

New York City's housing supply has not kept pace with its surging population, creating high prices, overcrowding, and homelessness.6 Bronx County has the third highest rate of severely crowded housing in the nation.7 Flushing's housing shortage is so severe that there is simply no more living space; houses and apartments are being subdivided, and basements, attics, and garages are all being rented out.8 And New York's schools are bursting with over-capacity enrollments, a trend that the school chancellor says is "almost exclusively driven by immigration."9 Some classes are even being held in school ticket booths and custodial closets.10

Other cities in this list are suffering as well: Thirty-seven of Detroit's 88 suburban school districts had double-digit enrollment growth between 1992 and 2000.11 Apartments in Bergen are among the least affordable in the U.S., according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. To afford the estimated $1,050 rent on a typical two-bedroom apartment in Bergen, a worker needs to earn an hourly wage of $20.19, almost quadruple the minimum wage of $5.15.12 In Boston, congestion costs each motorist three days and $1,255 each year.13 In Chicago, rush hour now lasts almost eight hours a day,14 and affordable housing shortages are becoming a crisis.15
 

Immigrant and Native-Born Influx

Where the most dramatically increased problems of crowding, urban sprawl, and related issues arise is in cities where there is both an influx of immigrants and of native-born residents. Those two sources of population increase combined with natural change (involving the birth rate) result in population growth rates that strain the ability of city planners to manage the impact.

The Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area offers an example of the challenges in dealing with this high-impact population growth. Portland's battle against sprawl is well known. But with a 28 percent increase in population during the 1990s, Portland, once a model for limiting urban growth, has been forced to repeatedly expand its urban boundary. Growth has led to traffic congestion, longer commutes, and inflated home prices (which increased 44 percent in the 1990s16). In December 2002, Portland's regional government agreed to the largest expansion of allowable development in its history-18,600 acres-simply to accommodate population growth anticipated over the next 20 years.17 In the Portland school districts, as many as two out of three new students are immigrants.18

What is strikingly evident in these bursting cities is that the rate of increase in immigrant settlement is consistently much greater than the rate of increase from domestic migration into the metropolitan area. This pattern of immigration-led population growth may be seen in Table 3. The criteria for selecting these metropolitan areas were that they had populations of more than one million in 2000 and had an increase in population of over 20 percent between 1990-2000. All U.S. metropolitan areas that met these two criteria are included in the table.19

Even in Las Vegas, the nation's fastest growing large metropolitan area, the high rate of increase in the native-born population (131%) is outstripped by the even higher rate of increase in the foreign-born population (248%). In every other of these metropolitan areas the rate of increase of the immigrant population is more than three times greater than the rate of increase in native-born newcomers.

What symptoms accompany this immigration-inflated population growth? Las Vegas' school enrollment doubled during the 1990s. Clark County school district (part of the Las Vegas metro area) projects that, given the current trend, it will add 10,000 to 15,000 students every year.20,21 Officials say that unless Salt Lake City acts to limit sprawl and curb auto emissions, the city could soon be "obscured by a soup of pollutants."22 In the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill metro area, one in every ten students, or 3,000 students in Durham, attend class in mobile trailers, many of which are decades old and dilapidated.23 Chapel Hill expects its high schools to reach 126 percent of their capacity in the next three years.24

Table 3