More Nebraskans Move From Rural Counties to Metro Areas

By Paul Goodsell, Omaha World-Herald, Neb.

Mar. 20–The growth of Nebraska’s urban population — and the decline of its rural areas — is happening faster than previously thought.

The U.S. Census Bureau’s latest county population estimates, which were released today, indicate that areas outside the Omaha, Lincoln and Sioux City metropolitan areas have lost nearly 23,000 residents since the 2000 Census — or more than 3,000 people per year.

A year ago, the estimated loss for non-metro counties was about 12,000 — less than 2,000 per year.

“That is quite a change,” said David Drozd of the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Center for Public Affairs Research.

All told, Nebraska has gained more than 63,000 residents so far this decade, to a total of 1,774,571 as of July 2007. But the modest population gains have been skewed overwhelmingly to Nebraska’s largest cities and their suburbs.

The eight-county Omaha metro area, which includes three Iowa counties, has grown by 8.2 percent since 2000 and now is just shy of 830,000 residents.

Lincoln’s two-county metro area has more than 292,000 residents, up 9.5 percent since 2000.

While smaller Nebraska cities and nearby areas generally held their own or grew slightly, a few have suffered population declines. The Norfolk area is down about 1,725 people, or 3.5 percent, following job losses at meatpacking plants.

The biggest declines on a percentage basis have been in the least-populated parts of Nebraska. Twenty-seven of Nebraska’s 93 counties have lost at least 10 percent of their population during this decade. Only one of those counties had more than 10,000 residents.

Nebraska has been shifting its population toward its urban counties for decades. In the 1920s, Drozd said, 40 percent of the state’s residents lived in the 13 most-populous counties. By 1980, 64 percent did. In 2000, it was 69 percent.

The latest estimates suggest that the top 13 counties account for 72 percent of all Nebraskans.

Randy Cantrell, a community development specialist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said the latest figures don’t show whether rural areas are losing people of prime working age, which would hurt the economy the most. But he said population losses are never good.

“You can’t go on losing population forever, no matter how you lose them,” Cantrell said.

Drozd said the latest estimates show a more dramatic rural-urban shift for several reasons.

First, those rural counties continue to lose population each year. Second, the Census Bureau has revised previous estimates for this decade — catching up to population shifts that occurred in the past but weren’t reflected in earlier reports.

For example, the estimates released last year showed Nebraska’s non-metro population at about 756,600. The new estimates say that figure should have been 8,400 lower.

Conversely, there were more people in the Omaha and Lincoln metro areas than previously thought.

None of those numbers came from an actual head count, which was last done in 2000. Instead, they are estimates based on births, deaths and other factors. They include estimates of migration within the United States as well as from other countries.

Since 2000, nearly half of Nebraska’s counties have had more deaths than births. In addition, 84 of the 93 counties have lost people to other Nebraska counties or states.

That tracks with recent Internal Revenue Service data, reported earlier this month, which showed many Nebraska counties losing residents through migration to the Omaha area or to other states.

International migration, which includes illegal immigrants, accounted for 43 percent of Nebraska’s total population growth.

Nearly all Nebraska counties gained from international migration, but five counties — Douglas, Lancaster, Hall, Dawson and Dakota — accounted for about 80 percent of the state’s foreign migrants. Those counties had about half the state’s total population.

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