Carson's population expected to be flat

While Census data shows Carson City added 2,817 people over the last 10 years, Nevada's capital and the rest of the state could be poised for fewer newcomers over the next decade.

Like most of the state, Carson City grew in the aughts, helping give Nevada a 35-percent growth spurt, the largest in the union, despite a severe recession that put a damper on the trend in the latter half of the decade.

State Demographer Jeff Hardcastle said Carson City has been losing population since 2007, when the capital's employment peaked. He estimated the city's population at 57,723 four years ago, but the 2010 Census pegged the capital at 55,274 - a 5.4 percent growth rate for the decade. Carson City had 52,457 people living in it in 2000.

Meanwhile, the total number of jobs in Carson City has fallen from 32,055 to 27,439, according to the Department for Employment, Training and Rehabilitation. Hardcastle added Carson City's labor force was about 27,000 in 2010, down from 28,500 in 2007.

And that could mean the region, as well as the entire state, could experience, "at best flat, or, at worst, losing population" by 2020.

Nevada now has 2.7 million residents, up from about 2 million in 2000. Clark County has the lion's share of the state's population - about 72 percent - with nearly

2 million residents. Washoe County grew by 24 percent to 421,407 people over the last 10 years.

Carson City Planner Lee Plemmel said the city is anticipating the capital to grow by about a half-percent annually, including no growth over the next couple years. It's a far cry from the 30 percent growth rates the capital experienced in the 1990s, he said.

"As we get closer to build-out, I don't think we'll see that growth rate again," Plemmel said. Because of its geographic limitations, Carson City cannot grow larger than 75,000 to 80,000 people.

Plemmel said an example of the slowdown in the capital's growth rate is the number of permits issued for housing units.

While the city issued, on average, 400 permits for housing units each year in the 1990s, the trend had slowed by 2006 when 274 were issued.

The last four years, however, have represented the fewest housing permits issued in Carson City since 1982 when 77 were approved, Plemmel said.

2007: 44

2008: 63

2009: 22

2010: 76

Plemmel said there are about 1,600 residential units that have been tentatively approved in Carson City, most submitted before the housing market started its free-fall. Plemmel said many of those permits are set to expire in the next two years.

Hardcastle said much of what will happen to Nevada over the next decade will rely on what happens to the national economy and whether the Silver State can find solid financial footing and start generating jobs again. And as long as job growth remains anemic nationwide, especially in California, Nevada may not experience a large out-migration - at least for now, he said.

"It's all speculation now as to how the next three to four years will play out," Hardcastle said. "The thing to keep in mind is June of 2007 is when our employment peaked, but since then, statewide, we've lost 190,000 jobs."

To put that into perspective, that's about 15 percent of Nevada's employment base that vanished in just a couple years.

"Compare that to Michigan, they lost 18 percent of their employment from 2000 to 2010," Hardcastle said. "In a quarter of the time we lost almost as much as Michigan on a percentage basis. That has implications for us."

For now, Hardcastle said Nevada is largely dependent on the recovery in California, which isn't expected to reach pre-recession job levels until 2013.

"Potentially we're looking at a flat situation," he said. "We may grow some by the end of this decade ... it's hard to say where we'll be at three years from now."