Long Island's Population Growth Stories (click image to launch)
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Why is this important?
The level of population growth is a fundamental benchmark of how attractive Long Island is as a place to live. New residents require more housing and services, but also add to the vibrancy of growing communities, increase sales for local businesses and provide additional tax revenues.
How are we doing?
Long Island’s population grew rapidly in the post-war years; today Nassau and Suffolk are the 27th and 21st most populous counties in the country respectively. As a region there are more of us than the residents of 19 other states.
In the boom years on Long Island when housing was plentiful and affordable, jobs were high paying and growing, people aged 25-34 flocked here and the percentage of young people in this age cohort was higher than in the country as a whole. But more recently we have had a harder time holding on to our younger population. Although the national trend for this age group has been downward due to a lower birth rate in the 1970s, Long Island’s decline is well outside of the national average. Nationally, 25-34 year olds comprise over 13% of the population in 2008. For the same year on Long Island the number is 9.9%. Long Island’s increasing lack of affordable housing, limits on employment opportunities and a shortage of vibrant downtowns that attract this age group may help to explain Long Island’s “brain drain.”
Compared to national trends, Long Island’s population is experiencing growth at higher rates for those 55 and over. While this share of the population is not the largest – those 35 to 54 are – the entry of the Baby Boomer generation into the over 55 cohort has increased its population on Long Island by 3.3% since 2000 compared to the national average of 2.5%.
Want to learn more? Visit the Changing Population Indicator
Acknowledgements
This interactive chart was created by JellyFever/Amy Unikewicz with Yi Liu. For more of JellyFever’s work see, www.jellyfever.com.
The data for overall population totals plus the town and village breakdowns for 1790 – 1980 is taken from the report, Historical Population of Long Island Communities: 1790 – 1980, published in August 1982 by the Long Island Regional Planning Board. Their analysis used published census materials as well as detailed unpublished or corrected community data to augment the census data. Where political boundaries changed, they noted the information so comparisons could be made across the years. Without their exhaustive study, this interactive chart would not have been possible.
Additional data on age breakdowns for Long Island and the US comes from Social Explorer, an online source for demographic information that compiles census data from 1790 to the present.
The data from 1990 to 2008 was collected by the Regional Plan Association using the U.S. Census decennial reports of 1990 and 2000 as well as the 2008 American Community Survey.
Note: Population totals for Nassau in 1820 was not available from the census data. To create these charts, a number has been filled in by taking the midpoint between 1810 and 1830.