A Missed Opportunity: Downpours in California could have been stored for use during future droughts.Much of the slowdown is the result of forces that have reshaped the United States more broadly, like a declining birthrate and the Trump administration’s policies discouraging or limiting immigration. In recent years, California’s population growth has slowed to its lowest recorded rates since 1900. The decline was small by share of the state’s nearly 40 million residents - just 0.46 percent - but in raw numbers, that is 182,083 people, or two Santa Barbaras, as Shawn noted.īoth of those changes were major reversals for a state that has, since the Gold Rush, been defined by lots of people moving here from around the world. Then, as my colleague Shawn Hubler reported on Friday, the state released its own population estimates, which showed that for the first time in more than a century, California actually lost people last year. First there came the news that while California did grow over the past decade, it didn’t grow fast enough according to the 2020 census to prevent the state from losing a seat in Congress for the first time.

Comin out strong california livin