The key to Gainesville's fortunes will be for the population to grow faster than projected over the next 30 years, according to economist David Denslow.
South Florida, which 40 years ago gave birth to senior citizen icons such as the early bird special and condo commando, is a retirement mecca no more, according to new Census statistics released Wednesday.
Broward County lost 4 percent of its 65-plus population between 2000 and 2010, the Census reported, while Palm Beach County gained a modest 9 percent.
According to statistics released this week by the U.S. Census Bureau, Gainesville's income gap was the fifth-largest in the nation from 2005 to 2009. Atlanta tops the list, followed by New Orleans; Washington, D.C.; and Miami. The city with the lowest income gap is West Jordan, Utah.
The city of Gainesville had the fifth-widest income gap in the country from 2005-09, a United States Census Bureau American Community Survey report released this month says.
David Denslow, a research economist at the University of Florida Bureau of Economic and Business Research, attributed the high level of income inequality to two factors — a relatively small city with a large university and medical complex, and the poverty rate and lack of jobs in east Gainesville.
The Reubin O’D Askew Institute on Politics and Society has partnered with the Bureau of Economic and Business Research to develop a series of Florida Focus papers that highlight how various regions in Florida are positioning themselves to move forward after the Great Recession. This paper – the second in the series – is a background essay written for participants in a meeting titled “Orlando: Choosing Our Future after the Great Recession,” that was co‐sponsored by the Askew Institute and the City of Orlando on May 18, 2011.
THE VILLAGES — She is around 67.8 years of age, and the numbers of her demographic the past 10 years grew proportionally faster in The Villages than those of her male counterpart. Meet Heide Eide and her fun Village of Largo friends and neighbors — Jane Gracan, Carmela D’Aloisio and Susan Sarlo — the face of The Villages, newly released 2010 census data suggests. At age 67, Eide fits perfectly into the median age bracket for women in The Villages Census Designated Place, the U.S. Census Bureau announced this morning in an embargoed information release.
Florida's population — already among the oldest in the country — is getting even older, but the rest of the nation is not too far behind.
New census data shows Florida's median population was 40.7 in 2010, two years older than in 2000. The increase reflects both the state's continuing allure for retirees, and the aging of the nation's largest generation: the baby boomers.
Most of Florida's largest counties and cities grew more rapidly than the nation since 2000, according to 2010 Census data released Thursday.
"It's a story of two different half-decades," says Stanley Smith, director of the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Florida. "The first half was so great that it made up for any decline of the past few years."
Local travelers are consolidating road trips and booking flights early as a result of higher gas prices that have economists worried about the affects on the economic recovery if recent spikes continue.
Further increases would lead consumers to cut discretionary spending even as businesses are faced with higher delivery costs. The political turmoil in Libya is getting the blame for the 23-cents-a-gallon hike in gasoline prices nationwide over the past week.
