Population

For three decades China's one-child policy helped power this nation's economic rise. With fewer mouths to feed, families saved. Poverty fell. Living standards improved. But a social experiment that worked well in some respects is now threatening the country's hard-won gains. China's working-age population -- the engine behind its prolific growth -- will start shrinking within a few years. Meanwhile, the ranks of elderly are projected to soar.

Here's yet another result of the bad economy: California's congressional delegation is unlikely to grow and could even lose a seat after next year's census for the first time since stagecoach days. If the state loses a seat, it could weaken California's clout in Washington and reduce the amount of federal money flowing to the state. It could also set off a game of political musical chairs, forcing two incumbents to run against each other.

Seeking more efficient delivery of social services, Ventura County homeless advocates this week released the results of a survey that identifies the typical homeless person in the county as a white male, over 40, with a history of mental illness or substance abuse. "This profile is really not the stereotypical homeless person in the minds of most people," said Karol Schullkin, a program director with the county's Human Services Agency.

Twenty-five years ago, Pongwon Kim turned his back on a successful life in Korea to bring his children to the United States. His greatest hope was that they would reap the rewards that their adopted country had to offer in business, academics, politics and culture. Kim left behind a successful manufacturing company in Seoul, where his factories produced shoes and sponges, to open a mom-and-pop dry-cleaning business in Sepulveda, now known as North Hills.

The number of chronically homeless people declined by 15% last year, according to a first-of-its-kind government report released Tuesday, though officials cautioned that part of the decline may be attributable to better counting methods. Nationwide, almost 1.6 million people were homeless and found shelter last year, the report found. "We're very encouraged by this," said Steven Preston, secretary of Housing and Urban Development, whose department released the report.

About this time every decade, the U.S. begins to hanker for the next great national self-portrait. That old still life that told us who we were -- magnificent as it once was in scope and detail -- has grown dusty and is ready for the closet. It's the time when the Census Bureau begins mustering the army of enumerators and tabulators who will reach across the country to tally us up in all our dynamism and diversity.

The integration of Southern California's suburban communities continued apace into the second half of the decade, driven by steadily growing numbers of Latinos and Asians moving into middle-class neighborhoods, according to detailed census data released Monday. Overall, the white population in the five-county region appears to have leveled off after a notable decline in the 1990s. Other groups continued to expand across the region, with the Asian population seeing the greatest increase.

They said, "Go west," but many Californians are going north and east. For the fourth year in a row, more residents left the Golden State than moved here from other states, according to a report released Wednesday by the California Department of Finance. The outflow -- last seen during the economic and social struggles of the 1990s -- started when it became too expensive for most people to buy homes in the state, and has kept going throughout the bust with the loss of so many jobs.

Ventura County social workers fanned out across the region this week to count the homeless. They trudged through river bottoms, staked out beach-side campsites and called on food pantries and social service agencies, any place where the homeless might gather. But on Friday, the homeless -- and their pets -- came to them. More than 40 people lined up outside Span Thrift Store in Ventura where, to aid the biannual count, county officials had set up a free veterinary clinic.

For a group that traditionally has viewed the counting of its members with ambivalence, the Jewish community is devoting a great deal of scrutiny and debate to population surveys. Take, for example, the discussion generated by the recent publication of a study by Brandeis University that estimated the U.S. Jewish population at 6 million to 6.4 million, roughly 1 million larger than thought.