STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

Tell us about it

• What would you add to this story? Tell us what we missed.
• Do you have photos from this event? Documents we need to see? Share with us.
• Upload photos & videos
• More ways to get your stuff online and in the paper.

More Local News

• Quotes from Marco City Council's review of City Manager
• POLL: Marco Island to keep City Manager Steve Thompson
• Workplace winners, part 1

Share and Enjoy [?]

Growth is slowing by Southwest Florida’s standards but compared to the rest of the country, the area’s growth rate was still among the fastest between 2000 and 2007.

The Naples-Marco Island metropolitan area was the 16th fastest-growing U.S. Metro Area between 2000 and 2007— a nine spot drop from the 2000-06 rankings, according to information released Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Cape Coral-Fort Myers metro area dropped one spot from the third to the fourth fastest-growing metro area between 2000-07, among 363 metro areas in the nation.

The ranking is based on percentage of growth, not the actual number of people.

Collier grew by 25.6 percent, from 251,377 in April 2000 to 315,839 in July 2007. During the same time period, Lee grew by 33.9 percent, from 440,888 to 590,564.

By comparison, the Atlanta area’s population increased by nearly 1.03 million people over the same time frame as Collier’s grew by 64,462 and Lee’s grew by 149,676.

JoNell Modys, spokeswoman for the Naples, Marco Island, Everglades Convention and Visitors Bureau, welcomed the news.

“The fact that we are a growing area means that there are more amenities that appeal to both visitors and local residents,” Modys said Wednesday.

She attributed part of the increase to younger people moving to Collier.

Lee County Chamber president Armando Nargi had a more reserved response to the numbers.

“Let’s face reality,” Nargi said. “It’s nice to have growth, but where are they now?”

The rankings are a funny manipulation of data, Nargi said, because Census numbers usually show only the number of people coming into a specific area.

“They don’t say how many people leave,” said Nargi, adding the number of “for sale” and “for rent” signs all over Lee County speak volumes.

He reiterated that the country’s economic slowdown could be reflected in Southwest Florida’s population numbers by next year.

However, across Florida, population increases seem to continue to be the trend.

Scott Cody of the Bureau of Economic & Business Research at the University of Florida in Gainesville said the census figures aren’t surprising.

“We are projecting a much slower growth per year (of roughly 200,000 people),” Cody said. “And yet, even at the lower rate, that would add 2 million people (over 10 years). The percentage is shrinking, but 200,000 people a year is still a lot of people.”

According to the census figures, 304 out of 363 U.S. metro areas had a larger population on July 1, 2007, than on April 1, 2000.

The 50 fastest-growing metro areas between April 1, 2000, and July 1, 2007, grew by at least 16.5 percent, which outpaced the nation’s population gain of 7.2 percent during the same time period.

As of July 1, 2007, the 363 metro areas in the United States contained 251.9 million people — 83.5 percent of the nation’s population.

The Atlanta metro area posted the largest numerical gain of the nation’s 363 metro areas over the seven-year period.

However for the one year period between 2006 and 2007, the Dallas-Ft. Worth metro area had the largest population gain with 162,250 more residents.

Palm Coast in Florida was first in percentage change for both the seven year period and the 2006-07 year. . Located between Daytona Beach and Jacksonville on Florida’s northeast coast, Palm Coast had a 77.4 percent increase in population from 2000 to 2007 and a 7.2 percent increase between 2006 and 2007.

For more information about the nation’s population change visit www.census.gov.