Every day in the decade of the 1990's Florida grew by 834 people.
We reached 16 million people by the April 2000 U.S. Census count.
Florida doubled its population in twenty-five years.
We grew by 23.5% in the 1990's (2.35% annually) which gives a
doubling time of thirty years.
From 2003-2004 we grew at a 4.7% rate, a projected doubling in
fifteen years.
That was a faster rate of growth than Pakistan at 2.3%, India at 1.5% and Mexico at 1.4%
Florida added three million people in the 1990's: 14.7% from
natural increase and 85.3% from migration. 18.27% of the births
in Florida during 2000 were to women of foreign birth.
The Center for Immigration
Studies estimates that one-half to two-thirds of Florida's
growth in the 1990's was due to foreign immigrants and their offspring.
For detailed reports visit http://www.cis.org and http://www.fairus.org).
In 2005 Florida grew by 1,000 people net each day.
By the 2010 Census we were over 18 million.
Yet Florida has not kept up with the additional infrastructure required for the state's population growth. We will need twice as much of everything and we will lose twice as much of our resources in just fifteen to thirty years. Water shortages, more expensive energy, and affordable housing losses are already occurring and will worsen because of the pro-growth legislation passed by the 2011 legislature.
Carrying capacity/sustainability is impossible at present numbers. Biologists and land use planners say Florida's sustainable population size needs to be around six or seven million at the current life styles we are living. Around 150 million is sustainable for the U.S. which is already at 311.8 million.
(See populationmatters.org/in-depth/frequently-asked-questions/optimum-populations and "Florida's Ecological Footprint")
There are too many people in Florida and in the U.S. And still we do not have a U.S. population policy despite several national commissions indicating a need to limit our numbers.
Population and the American Future, Rockefeller Commission Report - 1972 rejected by President Nixon
U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, Barbara Jordan Commission Report - 1997
"It is both a right and a responsibility of a democratic society to manage immigration so that it serves the national interest."
--Sen. Barbara Jordan
"Truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it
and ignorance may deride it,
but in the end, there it is."
--Winston Churchill