New Census Numbers!

I spent a little time this morning looking at the 2006 census numbers that were just released, and they were, dare I say it, pretty exciting.  Exciting, because they strongly support the demographics arguments NDN has been making, by showing that the fastest growing states are by and large concentrated in the Southwest and have the highest percentage of Hispanics relative to total population.  Three important conclusions:

• The two fastest growing states between July 2000 and July 2006 were Nevada and Arizona, fourth and fifth respectively in Hispanics as a percentage of population.  Nevada's population increased by 24.9% and Arizona's by 20.2%.  That compares to a national average of 4.7% population growth.

• The seven states with the highest percentage of Hispanics relative to total population (New Mexico, California, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Florida) make up seven of the top fifteen fastest growing states and five of the top eight.

• Those seven states, mentioned above, grew by an average of 13.8% between July 2000 and July 2006.  The average growth for the rest of the country over the same period was 4.7%.  That means that these states, where Hispanics comprise 16.8% to 42.1% of the population, are growing three times as fast as the rest of the country.