People are still leaving California — but not Fresno. Why is the region bucking the trend?
The city of Fresno, Fresno County and neighboring counties across the central San Joaquin Valley experienced modest gains in population during 2021, bucking a statewide trend of population decline over the course of the year.
New estimates released this week by the California Department of Finance’s Demographic Research Unit indicated that Fresno maintained its place as the fifth largest city in the state. An increase of 940 people pushed Fresno’s population as of Jan. 1 to 543,660, or 0.2% more than at the start of 2021.
California remained the most populous state in the country, despite the population dipped by more than 117,500 during the year, or 0.3%, to less than 39.2 million.
Population changes among the state’s 10 largest cities were:
- Los Angeles: A decrease of 33,785 residents, or 0.9%, to 3,819,538.
- San Diego: An increase of 2,958 residents, or 0.2%, to 1,374,790.
- San Jose: A decrease of 14,662 residents, or 1.5%, to 976,482.
- San Francisco: A decrease of 6,721 residents, or 0.8%, to 842,754.
- Fresno: An increase of 940 residents, or 0.2%, to 543,660.
- Sacramento: A decrease of 285 residents, or 0.1%, to 518,037.
- Long Beach: An increase of 925 residents, or 0.2%, to 460,682.
- Oakland: A decrease of 5,636 residents, or 1.3%, to 424,464.
- Bakersfield: An increase of 2,736 residents, or 0.7%, to 408,865.
- Anaheim: A decrease of 3,359 residents, or 1.0%, to 341,245.
Among California cities with populations under 300,000, Clovis had the eighth largest numeric change with a gain of 1,998 residents, or about 1.6 more than the prior year.
One likely reason for population gains in Fresno and the Valley is the cost of housing in the region compared to other parts of the state, said Brian Domingos Jr., owner/broker of Premier Valley Realty in Fresno and president-elect of the Fresno Association of Realtors.
“Although it’s not necessarily affordable by our (local) standards, it’s more affordable than other major California cities,” Domingos told The Fresno Bee on Wednesday. “There was a larger expectation that more people would move here because of their ability to work remotely, especially in the IT (information technology) industry, and there’s been truth to that.”
Domingos said he received a call earlier Wednesday from a would-be customer from the Bay Area who wants to buy a home in Fresno to be closer to care for her mother, “and cannot even touch a home in the Bay Area” because of the prices.
“Fresno and the Central Valley are able to provide a ladder for home ownership” in ways that more expensive regions cannot, he added.
The Valley’s biggest percentage gain in population was in the Kings County community of Corcoran. The city saw its population climb by almost 6% in 2021, rising by 1,240 to 22,047. Other sizable gains were noted in Kerman, in western Fresno County, at 3.5%; Avenal, in western Kings County, at more than 3.4%, and in Firebaugh, in western Fresno County, at almost 3.4%.
But more than half of the Valley’s incorporated cities experienced population declines in 2021, ranging from as little as 0.1% percent in the western Fresno County city of Huron to more than 2% in Dos Palos, in Merced County.
Housing units also increase
Fresno also saw an increase in the number of available places for people to live during the year, researchers found. Overall, the city gained 1,644 housing units – either houses, apartments or mobile homes – to bring to almost 187,000 the number of units in the city. About 1,230 of those new places were single-family homes, outnumbering 412 new multi-family units by a margin of about 3-to-1.
The cities of Kerman and Firebaugh not only had significant population growth, they were also among the state’s leaders in their percentage increases in total housing units. Kerman added 205 housing units to the city’s inventory, an increase of more than 4.5%, to rank sixth in California. Firebaugh’s 98 new units equated to an increase of almost 4.4% of all units, ranking seventh in the state, and a 6.3% gain in single-family units in the city.
This story was originally published May 5, 2022 at 9:00 AM.
