UCI

Local Population Growth

Orange County has grown rapidly since the early 1980s, and most of its residents are very aware of this. For the most part, however, they believe their local governments are doing enough to accommodate the growth.

Sixty-five percent of residents think the population has grown rapidly in their cities and communities, and another 21 percent believe their local areas have experienced slow growth. Only 14 percent say the local population is unchanged, and no one thought it had declined. Perceptions of rapid growth were about the same as in the 1991 Orange County survey but were greater than in 1982, the year of the first Orange County Annual Survey at the University of California, Irvine. These perceptions did not vary across racial/ethnic groups or by age, income, or education. However, the perception of rapid population growth was higher in the South County (73%) than in the North County (62%).

Given the high percentage of people who believe their areas are growing rapidly, it is rather surprising to find that two in three residents also believe that government regulations aimed at controlling growth are either about right (55%) or actually too strict (9%). Only about one-third think their local growth regulations are not strict enough. These attitudes mirror those in the 1982 survey but differ considerably from attitudes in 1991. At that time, residents were much less likely to believe that growth regulations were about right, and much more likely to believe they were not strict enough.

There were no differences across regions or political party lines in the belief that local efforts to control growth are about right. Older, higher income, and college-educated residents were somewhat more likely than others to believe that local growth controls were not strict enough. Attitudes toward controls also differed by race and ethnicity: Non-Hispanic whites (40%) are much more likely than Latinos (25%) and Asians (26%) to believe that local growth controls are not strict enough. Even among those who perceive rapid growth, fewer than half (46%) say that local growth controls in their cities and communities are not strict enough.