There's Not as Much Growth to Manage

One reason that some of the steam has gone out of the drive to manage California growth may be that there is not as much growth to manage.

The state's net population gain dropped last year for the first time since 1983-84, the last year of the recession in the early 1980s, Department of Finance demographic studies show. In other words, the state grew, but not by as much as the previous year. In 1989-90, California's population grew by 834,000, but in 1990-91 the increase dipped to 670,000.

Most of the decline came in what the demographers call "net domestic migration"--people who moved to California from other states. That increase dropped from 214,453 in 1989-90 to 34,286 in 1990-91.

Other categories--"natural increase" (births over deaths), political refugees and legal and illegal immigrants--were about the same in both years. However, the 180,000 drop in domestic migration was enough to account for almost a 20% overall decline in population increase.