housing

The 2010 Census is provoking much angst in the Salt River Valley. Arizona's 40-percent population increase of the 1990s will almost certainly not be replicated over the decade just past, and some worry that at least certain cities could actually see population declines. Such is the damage from the great recession. Such has been the preeminent importance of adding people to the economy and psyche of metro Phoenix. Not growing scientists, corporate headquarters, diverse industries, incomes, high-wage jobs, quality schools, venture capital, the arts, public transit, shade, etc. — just adding people.

A few predictions can be made without much fear: Phoenix will not rise higher than America's No. 5 most populous city, barring a holocaust hurricane hitting Houston. Indeed, Phoenix's population may well be flat or even have fallen since mid-decade. Its poverty will rise. It will move closer to becoming a Hispanic majority city, if the Census count is thorough and honest. The metro area as a whole will have gained, but not nearly as much as it did in some of the preceding decades. De-facto segregation by ethnic group, and especially class, will grow more rigid. The demographic and social changes brought by this first crash of the Great Disruption will be felt in the 2010 Census and continue to reverberate into the new decade. Among them: Americans are moving less.

Taken together, the message of the 2010 Census to Phoenix and Arizona: You'd better find a new gig.