Baton Rouge's population swell

[NCB]

The river there is lined with tankers, freighters, and so on.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes it certainly is, especially now

The Port of Baton Rouge is normally very busy, there are always many tankers and major ships lining the river. Right now, it is EXTREMELY busy, I have never seen this much traffic on the river in B.R.

This will all thin out as New Orleans gets back to normal of course, but right now Baton Rouge is showing that it can handle the river traffic that New Orleans frequently gets.

[krazeeboi]

I think it might be smart for some state funds to be diverged to Baton Rouge for infrastructure improvements/expansion given their recent increase in growth. Furthermore, a good bit of these people won't be moving back to N.O. (although some undoubtedly will), so why not?

[NCB]

New Orleans 462,269 484,674 496,938

These numbers which were posted above indicate that NO has 34,000 less people in 2004 than 1990. Why were people leaving in the first place?

-The loss of population is due to multiple things..

-The remaining white people living in the city are moving to the suburbs or other cities.

-Younger workers/students are leaving the city in search of better opportunities elsewhere.

-Workers have been leaving the city because they can get payed much higher for the same work in other southern cities such as Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta.

-Companies have been relocating, taking their workers with them.

-People leave simply because they are tired of the corrupt government, horrible public school system, extremely high crime rates, and countless other reasons.

Here is a chart showing New Orleans' populations from 1810-2004.

You can see that New Orleans population was growing quite rapidly until the oil bust in the 70's, and declined steadily from that point on. The population has been declining even faster over recent years.

City of New Orleans

Population by year

1810 - 17,242

1820 - 27,176

1830 - 46,082

1840 - 102,193

1850 - 116,375

1860 - 168,675

1870 - 191,418

1880 - 216,090

1890 - 242,039

1900 - 287,104

1910 - 339,075

1920 - 387,219

1930 - 458,762

1940 - 494,537

1950 - 570,445

1960 - 627,525

1970 - 593,471

1980 - 557,515

1990 - 496,938

2000 - 484,674

2004 - 462,269

[tombarnes]

Those are depressing statistics...I hate to think of everyone moving out to endless sprawl. What are the metro statistics?

[NCB]

I dont have long term metro population stats, but I have these figures.

1980 - 1,250,000

2000 - 1,360,436

2002 - 1,363,750

As you can see from that group of stats, the city is losing population much faster than the metro is gaining population, which shows you how many people are moving away from the N.O. area entirely. This is due mostly to the much better job markets in most other cities across the country.

[I-275westcoastflorida]

I honestly think Baton Rouge will pass New Orleans in population for a few reasons its population was declining in the first place, many pre-katrina residents live elsewhere and will stay there, the new Cat5 levee system will take a while to build, next years hurricane season might slow it, economy loss, just many factors against it and probably the most difficult rebuild in the history of the country. But once the new levee's are built all of you sprawl haters, well sprawl will help because as so many cities land value increases i think this city will lower but in turn cheap housing will be a big draw to the city later on. I mean look at this house it would be worth around $300,000 and wouldnt be new.

[alon504]

I don't see how that would be possible. Unless Baton Rouge maintains a population of close to 500,000. New Orleans is forecasted to top 500,000 within 5 years, again. I guess we'll wait and see. I think it would be great if Baton Rouge stayed that large. It would be great for the economy of Louisiana.

[I-275westcoastflorida]

^And give it a bigger skyline as well

[NCB]

^And give it a bigger skyline as well

Well, currently no buildings may be taller than the Louisiana State Capitol, which is 460 feet tall. But if BR see's an extreme increase in the building of skyscrapers, that rule may change.

[skylinefan]

Very interesting article in Today's Washington Post about the effects on Baton Rouge of the influx of Katrina Survivors from New Orleans a year later.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6082401918.html

[richyb83]

Thanks very much skyliner for sending that article. I really liked the graphics of the maps.