California’s once stratospheric population growth has officially plateaued just shy of 40 million residents. Affordability, housing shortages, Covid deaths, and domestic migration have had a profound impact on urban populations in California. San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco counties all saw sizeable declines in population over the past 2 years.

In terms of overall numbers, Los Angeles County lost about 160,000 residents, the bay area lost 116,000 residents and San Diego County lost 22,000 residents. Both L.A. County and the Bay Area have a far greater population base – so San Diego county per capita loss is on-par with the larger metropolitan areas.

This census data does not come as a surprise to many Californian urbanites who have experienced housing shortages and astronomical living expenses for years. Those high living costs are pushing people both out of state and to inland California – areas like Merced, Placer and San Joaquin counties have secured the top three largest growth rates over the last year. Top growth states include Florida, Texas, Idaho, Arizona and Nevada.