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Tell me everything I need to know about the changes in Bakersfield, California over the last 5-10 years.
Hi, and thank you for asking Wonder to tell you about the changes that have happened in Bakersfield, California over the last five to ten years.
METHODOLOGY
I looked for statistics and data showing population and economic changes in Bakersfield in recent years. I found data going back to the 1800's which may be of interest to your client. The data shows how Bakerfield's demographics have changed over the last 10 years. My research showed that one of the biggest changes in Bakersfield has been the increase in air pollution. Below you will find a deep dive of my research and findings.
RESULTS
The previous Mayor of Bakersfield, Mr Harvey L. Hall completed 16 years in office in 2016. He wrote an interesting article describing the changes he had seen in the city since 2000. The population of Bakersfield has increased from 247000 to 379000. This makes Bakersfield the 52nd largest city in the United States and the 9th largest in California.
Some of the biggest physical changes that the mayor noted include the development of the 32 acre Riverwalk Park in 2006, the opening of the State Farm Sports Village in 2011 and the opening of a US federal Courthouse. Numerous other projects such as road improvements and the building of a large community hospital have changed the face of Bakersfield and attracted people to move to the city.
Demographics
The Hispanic community now makes up 47% of the population in Bakersfield. This is a massive growth from the 12% of population in 1970.
The number of divorcees in Bakersfield has nearly doubled from 1970 with around 9.65% of the population divorced. 47.10% of the population over the age of 15 are married with 36.17% never married.
11% of families have more than 6 members and are classified as large families. 53% of families have 1 -3 members.
In January 2010 unemployment rates reached a high of 15% but have since dropped to 8.2% in November 2016.
In 2016 Bakersfield had approximately 127281 housing units with an average of 3.16 members per household. In 2006 the city had 108242 housing units with an average of 3.01 members per household.
In 2000 51% of the population was Caucasian and this had dropped to 37.8% by 2010. No newer stats are available. The Black population went from 8.9% to 7.7%. Asian from 4.1% to 5.9%.
Poverty
Once contained primarily east of downtown Bakersfield, extreme concentrated poverty has spread throughout other parts of the metropolitan area in the past decade. Of the roughly one in four Bakersfield residents who live in poverty, 32% live in extremely poor neighborhoods. This is nearly double the pre-recession concentration, when 17% of poor metro residents lived in extreme-poverty neighborhoods — one of the largest increases of any metro area. Bakersfield also had the fastest growth in the concentration of poor suburban whites of the country’s 100 largest metro areas.
Air Pollution
Nowadays clear days don’t happen all that often in Bakersfield. Emissions from agriculture, industry, rail freight and road traffic together create one of the country’s worst concentrations of air pollution – a condition exacerbated by geographic and climatic conditions that trap dry, dirty air over this southern section of Central Valley like the lid over a pot. Of the wider metro area’s 875,000 people, about 70,000 are said to have asthma, 40,000 cardiovascular disease, and 27,000 chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. A 2006 study found the health impacts of the region’s air pollution cost the southern section of the Central Valley, known as the San Joaquin, an estimated $3 billion – or about $1,000 per person per year in a region where about a quarter of the population is in poverty.
CONCLUSION
Bakersfield is a growing city that has a number of problems, as does any city, but a number of new developments show a bright future for the city.
Please feel free to contact Wonder for all your future research needs.