Manteca has 88,803 residents.

Lathrop has 35,008 residents

Tracy has 95,685 residents.

Those are population estimates as of Jan. 1, 2023 by the California Department of  Finance.

That’s 219,426 combined for the three South San Joaquin County cities.

Modesto, as of Jan. 1, had 216,995 residents.

Manteca, if all goes according to “the plan”, will have 211,003

“The plan” is the city’s general plan that has been in the process of being updated over the past seven years.

It has been stalled again — this time by concerns the process wasn’t properly noticed — on its way to final adoption by the Manteca City Council.

But when it gets there and gains approval, it will set in motion even more development beyond the roughly 9,500 housing units in the process of being approved to be built or that have secured entitlement and have yet to be built.

It will take roughly 2½ times more housing units than Manteca currently has to accommodate 211,003 residents.

Given Manteca’s location to the over-saturated Bay Area that has cities left and right like San Jose producing more jobs than housing, relatively new state laws that mean cities basically can’t stop housing if there is land zoned for it, and how well the city is positioned to expand critical infrastructure such as wastewater treatment; the 211,003 population future is more reality than fantasy for Manteca.

The city’s general plan update assumes all of the land within Manteca’s sphere of influence that isn’t tagged as urban reserve will be developed based on zoning.

Couple those 211,003 residents with general plan projections for Lathrop that joins Manteca at the proverbial hip and Ripon that Manteca will eventually bump up against and you’re looking at 321,911 people.

That’s the size of Stockton today.

Ponder the implication of such numbers.

Manteca is about to put a blueprint for growth in place that will give the community the current population of Manteca, Tracy, and Lathrop combined.  That’s basically the same size as Modesto.

That means Manteca is being planned to become the 20th largest city in California.

And when it comes to Manteca, Lathrop, and Ripon, there will be a contiguous mass or urbanization equivalent to Stockton today as California’s 11th largest city.

Toss in where Tracy is headed along with Mountain House, and the South County will be nipping at the heels of Sacramento’s current population.

Sacramento, with 525,941 residents, is the state’s fifth largest city.

Population growth can’t go on forever, right?

It’s probably what people in Manteca in 1975 were saying when  Manteca had 15,000 residents or just 769 shy of what Ripon had on Jan. 1. Today, Manteca is almost six times larger.

Ripon, by the way, had 2,900 residents back in 1975, or just over one-fourth what it does today.

If the Bay Area-Northern San Joaquin Valley economic realities  dictate it, Manteca will indeed reach 211,003 people.

But keeping in mind the general plan is typically updated as if the ultimate population is a moving goal post.

As long as a city is growing and they have areas to grow into, general plan consultants are going to plug in growth numbers and the city limits will continue to expand.

And whatever the city says they’re planning for in a general plan,  the state under new rules that make it basically impossible for cities not to ultimately approve housing development assures the homes will be  built if the demand is there.

It’s likely too late to alter in any substantial way the update that needs to be in place by 2025.

And if there is a general consensus in the community that eventually brakes should be tapped in a bid to slow things down to an eventual stop, waiting to do so when the next general plan update process starts will likely be too late.

If people want to a city that ultimately doesn’t exceed 211,003 residents, efforts need to start now and not later.

No slam intended,  but there are three basic things that can be done so Manteca doesn’t become Modesto and then doesn’t become Stockton.

*Urban limits.

 Urban limits are ultimate boundaries to where a city will grow.

Most high growth cities over the years in California have been boxed in by other cities and daunting physical barriers such as rivers.

In Manteca’s case, the 200-year flood zone and Ripon will prevent it from heading much further south, it is smack dab up against Lathrop on the west, and most of its northern sphere of influence tangles with Stockton’s.

Drawing the ultimate eastern city boundary in concrete — perhaps the southern extension of Prescott Road if not a point closer to Austin Road — prevents Manteca growing beyond the sphere of influence that the current general plan update proposes adopting.

*Green belts.

Green belts are undeveloped swaths of land buffering cities from each other.

It’s been policy talk in the general plans of both Ripon and Manteca  but that’s about it.

Whether it is done with agricultural easements for viable farming such as almonds aa vineyards or in some other fashion, there needs to be a plan to implement the green belt concept before they will be impossible to put in practice.

*Revitalization.

Stockton and Modesto — or just about any other large cities — have areas that have deteriorated into being beyond undesirable.

Manteca is headed that way. It’s a malaise of having growth that can get you up to 200,000 or so. That’s because conditions exist for such growth to happen fairly easily makes it cheaper than revitalizing  older areas.

The biggest reason is raw land — read that farmland — is in large enough parcels to develop on a scale that makes it economically feasible and easy to do. That is not the case with areas broken up into smaller parcels whether they are developed or not.

The question isn’t whether Manteca will grow.

It is how it will grow and, ultimately, how much it will grow.

 This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com