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March 20, 2008

Census” Suburban counties grow in state

By Justin Juozapavicius, Associated Press Writer

The way Grant Hedrick Jr. sees it, it seems like there’s rooftops popping up everywhere in his county.

“If you’re within an hour of Oklahoma City, that seems to be where people want to go,” said Hedrick, a commissioner for Canadian County, which registered the largest estimated percent change in county growth between 2006-07, according to U.S. Census figures released Thursday. “We’ve got a lot of property.”

Canadian County, with an estimated 103,559 population as of July 1, 2007, neighbors Oklahoma County, home of the state’s capital. A year earlier, the estimated population was 100,092. The growth represents a 3.5 percent change.

It also touches McClain County, which registered the second largest estimated percent change in county growth between 2006-07, from 30,801 to 31,849 — a 3.4 percent change.

Wagoner, Ellis and Rogers counties round out the top five counties that experienced the greatest estimated percent change in population.

Wagoner and Rogers counties neighbor Tulsa County, home to the state’s second-largest city. Ellis County, in far western Oklahoma, is in an area known for oil and gas exploration.

“The economy in Oklahoma is good,” Hedrick said. “We’re seeing the oil money coming in and people are going out here and buying a farm and building a house on it, and they may never own a cow or anything, but they’ve got a nice, big open area.”

Land to grow on is a selling point in Rogers County, where there’s enough room for house and “still be a cowboy,” said commissioner Mike Helm.

“We’re big enough to put a grass airfield in, and you can go up in an airplane and land in your backyard,” Helm said. “They’re not making any more land.”

Other key points from Thursday’s data analyzed by Oklahoma Depart-ment of Commerce found between 2000 and 2007, there were 38 counties estimated to have experienced declining populations. Between 2006 and 2007, there were 21 counties estimated to have witnessed declining populations.

Also, in data found between 2000 and 2007, Oklahoma’s population was estimated to increase by 42,146 people as a result of net international migration, or people coming into the state — legally or illegally — from other countries.

Nationally, 70 of the 100 fastest-growing counties were in the South, with 22 in the West and eight in the Midwest, the Census Bureau shows. More than one-third of the fastest-growing were in Georgia or Texas.

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On the Net: www.census.gov

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