By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism.
Take away COVID college closures, PG&E burning Paradise: Lathrop fastest growing city in California
Perspective
wyatt art.png
PG&E gets partial credit for making it possible Paradise to be the fastest growing city in California in 2021 with a 25.55 percent growth rate. It went from 6,137 people as of Jan. 1, 2021 to 7,705 on Jan. 1, 2022. The PG&E triggered Camp Fire in November 2018 decimated Paradise that had 27,000 residents back then.

For what it is worth, Lathrop — based on state  Department of Finance projections made for population on Jan. 1, 2022 — was the fastest growing city in California once you remove two aberrations.

The first is the Camp Fire in 2018 that PG&E copped to manslaughter charges in the death of 85 people.

The second is the COVID-19 pandemic.

If both hadn’t happened, based on pure growth Lathrop would have been California’s fastest growing city in 2021 with a 6.63 percent gain in population.

Paradise is No. 1 on the state list with a 25.55 percent growth rate.

That, however, is the direct result of the laborious process of replacing 18,000 plus buildings in the Camp Fire of which 15,000 or so were homes.

Paradise had a population just under 27,000 before the fire sparked by faulty — and archaic — PG&E equipment.

Paradise by Jan. 1, 2021 managed to have 6,137 residents that returned to rebuilt homes. A year later on Jan. 1, 2022 the number reached 7,705 for the 25.55 percent increase.

COVID-19 skewed the numbers for Santa Cruz.

Before the pandemic hit, Santa Cruz was pushing 64,000 residents.

The switch to 100 percent remote learning in 2021 dropped the city’s population down to 57,594 as of Jan. 1, 2021.

The move back to in person learning brought the number back up to 64,074 by Jan. 1, 2022. The 11.25 percent bounce back was enough to secure the No. 2 spot on the statewide list of cities in terms of growth during 2021.

UC campuses elsewhere on the coast returning to in-person learning had similar impacts on growth rates on a number of medium-sized and smaller cities where they are located.

The big news from the Department of Finance report was after pushing 40 million people just over two years ago, the Golden State’s population as of Jan. 1, 2022 was estimated to be 39,185,605 residents. Basically, there are now as many Californians as there was in 2016.

Before anyone places an order for a gravestone for California or projecting the collapse of growth in the South San Joaquin County everyone needs a reality check.

Texas has 29.5 million people. In order for California to drop down to the population size of the second state on the list we’d have to lose 10.4 million people or the population of North Carolina.

California is still No.1 in farm production at $50 billion. That’s the equivalent of Iowa and Nebraska — the No. 2 and No. 3 farm states — combined.

The gross domestic product of California is just a smidgen less than the combined $3.4 trillion economic output of the No. 2 and No. 3 stated — Texas and New York — combined. And yes, depending upon the yardstick, if California were a free-standing nation we’d have the world’s sixth or seventh largest economy.

Then there is the valid argument in terms of the variety of geographic and natural riches California is way out of front as well.

California — despite its issues — isn’t going to lose its spot at the head of the class anytime soon.

That brings us to thoughts one might harbor that growth is going to drop off the cliff in this part of California in the foreseeable future.

The coastal areas as a whole are dropping and the inland parts of California are seeing population growth. That is the clear and prevalent general trend with a handful of exceptions.

The biggest gains are in the exurbs — the areas beyond suburbs where commuters travel from — to reach the job-rich San Francisco-San Jose-Oakland area or the Los Angeles Basin.

There were 4,725 residents added to Lathrop, Manteca and Tracy in 2021 thanks almost exclusively to meeting the housing demand of Bay Area employment centers.

The three South County cities have a number of key things in common.

They have room to grow. They have infrastructure  in place. They have developers that have invested heavily into moving projects forward. They are all on a key corridor that moves goods as well as commuters to the Bay Area.

And, perhaps most important of all, they have the housing type that is in short attainable supply in the Bay Area even with household salaries of $150,000 — traditional detached single family homes.


Tidbits from the 2021

population estimate study

If you’re like former Manteca City  Manager Steve Pinkerton, then getting to browse through statistics the Department of Finance served up Monday is akin to a chocolate lover getting a bunch of truffles that command $8 apiece.

Pinkerton, by the way, is general manager of the Mountain House Community Service District. If Mountain House’s  current push toward incorporation succeeds it will become San Joaquin County’s eighth city.

It will also join Tracy, Manteca, and Lathrop as cities likely to grow the most in the greater Bay Area region due to strategic proximity  to Altamont Corridor Express and the proposed Valley Link rail commuter service connecting to BART.

The following are some tidbits gleaned from the state report:

Los Angeles led the city in numerical population loss dropping 33,785 residents in 2021. It is still the second largest city in the nation with 3,819,538 people.

The next three cities for most numerical losses are all in the Bay Area — San Jose 14,662, San Francisco 6,721, and Oakland 5,636.

Percentagewise, Susanville was the No. 1 city among 482 with population loss. The Lassen County community went from 14,514 residents to 13,212 for an 8.97 percent drop in population.

There are 13 cities in California with less than 1,000 residents. The smallest is Amador City in Amador County with 191 residents. To put that in persecutive, during 2021 it took Manteca 37.4 days to add 191 people or the entire population of Amador City.

Speaking of small towns, Plymouth in Amador County is just above 1,000 residents with a population of 1,045. It’s city manager — who retired as of March 10 after being on the job since May of 2019 — also has former ties to the City of Manteca. The retired city manager is Rex Osborn who served as a community service officer with the Manteca Police Department for years.

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