Urban Bloat: How Immigration Fuels Population Growth (2003)
Executive Summary
Many of the nation’s large cities are growing at an alarming rate. Immigration is the major contributor to those high growth rates-all of it in some cases-and to the many negative impacts that arise from rapidly increasing populations, such as school overcrowding, bankrupt public health care systems, the alarming number of children living in poverty, insufficient low-income housing, and deteriorating or inadequate infrastructure.
- 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 native-born newcomers.
- In some major urban areas with the largest influx of immigrants, so many native-born residents are moving out that immigration accounted for all of the population increase there, and then some (in the New York City, Boston, San Jose, Newark, and Bergen-Passaic metro areas).
- In mid-sized cities with population growth higher than 20 percent between 1990-2000, new immigrant residents accounted for portions ranging from one-fifth to one-third of the increase.
- In every smaller metro area that increased by more than 20 percent between 1990-2000, the rate of increase from immigration exceeded the increase from domestic migration. The rate of population increase in the immigrant population of these cities ranged from about twice as much as the increase in the native-born population (Daytona Beach) up to more than 15 times as much (Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers metro area).
The full report is available in PDF.
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