Some Areas of State Changing Considerably, Census Shows

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The populations of three areas of Alabama seem to be undergoing considerable social change, judging from population estimates just released for 2009.

According to Annette Watters, manager of the Alabama State Data Center at The University of Alabama’s Center for Business and Economic Research, counties with both net outmigration and more deaths than births between 2008 and 2009 were clustered into three areas; The east central (Clay, Randolph, Coosa, Tallapoosa, Chambers and Macon counties); the upper west central (Marion, Winston, Lamar, Fayette, Walker and Pickens counties) and the central south (Butler and Covington counties).

“All of these are rural, small population counties whose economies have been affected by the recent downturn,” Watters said. “When more people die than are born in a county, it is possibly because the people that would be young parents are moving away.”

“People are born, and people die. People move around. But not all those things are happening at the same rate in all parts of our state,” Watters said. “If a county had more people who moved away than people who moved in, and also more deaths than births, the result was population loss last year.”

“These numbers are not the results of the census that is being taken right now,” Watters said. “These are estimates that we will have to use until we get our new results from the 2010 census.  These estimates cover through the year 2009.

“When people move into a county, they can be either people moving there from another county or state, or they can be recent movers to the United States. International immigration is a significant factor in the population change of many Alabama counties. Quite a few have seen population loss among domestic residents, but concurrently have had gains from international residents. The large counties of Mobile, Montgomery and Jefferson fit that description, as do the small counties of Franklin and Walker.”

“However,” Watters said, “rural is not synonymous with population loss.” She said some rural Alabama counties continue to gain population from domestic movers, international immigrants, and newborn arrivals. Chilton, Bibb and DeKalb are examples of growing rural counties.

“Rural counties that are attracting noticeable numbers of new residents tend to be those that have a nice-sized town or small city to anchor the nearby economy,” Watters said.  “A quiet lifestyle with some amenities within an easy drive can be very appealing.”