The population of Central and South Texas is growing. Is your area? We'll see why and why-not in today's edition of Chew the Fat.
Good day to you rural Texans and to our city cousins who stumbled upon us. Well, you might not have stumbled. You might have come a runnin'. It seems that lots of "urbanites," as we in Ag Media like to call you, are heading to the rural route. Let's examine the numbers! Last weeks U.S. Census said that the U.S. population has grown by 9.7% since 2000. That's a lot of new folks, but just to see how many, lets' look at it this way. If we break it down by square mile it tells us that 87.4 Americans occupy every square mile of our land. Is that correct? Of course not. In Texas we have lots of unoccupied land, but rural life is getting a little crowded in some areas. In my little corner if the Hill Country - Kendall County - we have seen a boom in new home construction and all of it on rural ranch land. In fact, Texas saw an inflation of 4.3 million people since 2000. My rural area has followed suit with natural trends, It seems the new comers are retirees seeking a slower pace and a lower tax rate. Of course, this is not the case in most rural areas. The census indicates some 1400 counties west of the Mississippi have fewer than 20,000 people.
These counties continue in most cases to lose population. Many south Texas counties were in that category until 2009 when the Eagle-ford Shale oil boom began. Advances in technology led to increased production of both oil and gas in counties like McMullen and LaSalle. McMullen County had a population of only 810 in 2009. LaSalle County only 5810. When you think about our population example used earlier, LaSalle had 3.9 folks per square mile.
Has the oil boom in South Texas and an influx of retirees into the Hill Country help our rural economy? Yes, it has. Is it a good way to start off 2011? Yes, it is.
-LMM