California on my mind

News item: The population of California is now estimated (pdf) to be 36,591,000.

How do we compare? Only 32 countries in the world have more people. The next one we pass is Argentina at 37.3 million. California is already well ahead of Canada, Australia, Venezulea, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and most of the nations in Europe.

In the same estimate, Los Angeles County tops 10.1 million—ahead of Greece, Sweden, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia and Austria, and just behind the Czech Republic's 10.2 million. More than a third of Californians live in Los Angeles or Orange Counties.

And it keeps coming. Most of the 600,000 net increase last year is due to births outnumbering deaths, followed by foreign immigration legal and not. Most of the growth was here in Southern California, but the big changes are coming beyond the Tehachapi Mountains in the San Joaquin Valley. The Public Policy Institute of California is out with a report saying the number of people living there will at least double by 2040. Right now that area is mostly farms, and once that's no longer true—imagine the San Fernando Valley or the area around San Jose, also a farming area not too long ago—California will be a much different place.