Population

San Diego County's population topped 3 million for the first time last year. More than 41,000 people moved to San Diego County in 2003, a 1.4% increase over the year before, and the county's lowest rate in a decade, according to the state Department of Finance's demographic research unit. The state on Wednesday estimated the county's population at 3,017,200. San Diego County is the third-largest county in the state, just 100 people behind No. 2 Orange County.

The San Fernando Valley has more jobs available relative to its population than Los Angeles County as a whole, according to a study by the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., a business trade group. The Valley has 470 jobs for every 1,000 residents, or 13% more jobs per population than the 417-per-1,000 ratio for the county, the group said. As recently as 1982, the Valley's ratio trailed Los Angeles County's by 12%, VICA said. The Valley overall has a population of 1.

In a surprising turnaround, Los Angeles County's population is soaring again--surpassing so far in the 1980s all the growth of the 1970s. Stalled and even losing population at times in the early 1970s, Los Angeles County is now growing by nearly 120,000 people a year, about three times the yearly average of the last decade. If the trend continues, the county will add more residents than it did during the 1960s, when the population rose by 1 million. "Los Angeles County's population . . .

Nearly one out of five Japanese is now 65 or older as the nation's elderly population has hit a new record high of 23.6 million, according to a government survey. Japan's elderly now account for 18.5% of the country's total population of 127.47 million, up half a percentage point from last year, the government said in an annual report, released for the Sept. 15 Respect for the Aged Day, a national holiday. The number of elderly women stood at 13.

Nearly two-thirds of New Orleans' pre-Hurricane Katrina population has returned, a new report estimates. But Greg Rigamer, the demographer who compiled the report, said Tuesday that he expected the growth seen since July 2006 to plateau within the next year as the sense of urgency to return lessens. Rigamer said an estimated 288,000 people were living in New Orleans in October. In July 2005, the month before Katrina hit and flooded 80% of the city, the population was estimated at 455,000.

The nation's Jewish population reached 6,136,000 as of 2000, an increase of 75,000 over 1999, according to the new "American Jewish Year Book." The number gains special interest with U.S. Muslims' claims that the number of adherents to Islam surpasses or equals that of Jews in this country. The annual, a reference standard compiled by the American Jewish Committee, obtains population estimates from local Jewish groups. Surveying longer trends, the book said that in 1900, 52% of the 1.

When the clock ticks over to midnight Sunday and 2007 arrives, the United States will have nearly 2.9 million more people than a year earlier. The Census Bureau projected that the nation's population as of Jan. 1 will be 300,888,812. That's up 2,863,990 during the year. In January, the United States is expected to register one birth every eight seconds and one death every 11 seconds, the bureau said. And, it added, migration from other countries will add one person every 27 seconds.

Boston is growing, not shrinking, the U.S. Census Bureau says, acknowledging it underestimated the population by more than 37,000 people. Its new estimate puts Boston's population at 596,638, rather than 559,034, a 1.3% increase since 2000 instead of a 5.1% decrease, Mayor Thomas Menino said.

New York City has grown to a record 8.2 million people, according to a new population estimate revised after city officials challenged census figures they said missed more than 70,000 residents. The U.S. Census Bureau reported earlier this year that the city's population had increased slightly to 8,143,200, but the Department of City Planning disputed the estimate and the census was revised in its favor, to 8,213,839.

Sanitation officials bracing for explosive growth in a rural area between Woodland Hills and Thousand Oaks said Tuesday that they may have to triple the size of their sewer system to accommodate thousands of homes and businesses. Las Virgenes Municipal Water District administrators said they may be forced to build a network of small satellite sewage-treatment plants in Malibu, Agoura, Calabasas and eastern Ventura County to handle waste flow.