Introduction

	Decision-Making Information
	Contact Proximity information resources & solutions (888) DMI-SOLN (888) 364-7656

Assessing America's geodemographic landscape between now and mid-century ...

• Will the U.S. population increase from 285 million in 2001 to 439 million in 2050 -- 54%?
(August 2008 Census Bureau projection)
• Will the school-age population (5-17) increase from 53.3 million in 2001 to 73.4 million in 2050 -- 37.7%?
• Will the Hispanic school-age population increase from 9 million in 2001 to 28.4 million in 2050 -- 215%?
• Will annual Hispanic immigration increase from 609,000/year in 2001 to more than 1 million/year in 2050?

• How will these changes manifest themselves geographically?
• How would such changes impact the environment?
• How will the U.S. be able to meet health care needs?
-- A myriad of such questions exist.

Outlook 2050 is a quantitatively-based modeling process designed to examine the demographic, economic and geographic landscape of the United States between now and 2050/mid-century. Initially Outlook 2050 is focused on alternative scenario annual projections of the population by single year of age, race/ethnicity, and gender on national and sub-national scales. Sub-national geographies are initially focused on states, metropolitan statistical areas and urban statistical areas, a new designation/term.

U.S. Population Change -- 1790 to 2050

Single-year of age projections enable us to examine change in the size and make-up of age groups of particular interest such as early childhood populations, school and college age populations, employment-related populations, older populations, and special needs populations. In subsequent steps, employment estimates and projections will be added to Outlook 2050.

Initial steps make use of the national scope population projections (see August DMINews) in development of the Outlook 2050 integrated software and database. The Outlook 2050 is then used to explore disaggregated projections by the sub-national areas. Existing MSAs, as defined by OMB are used for historical (2000 forward) and current year estimates. The number and location of future MSA counties will be determined by the modeling process. That is, Outlook 2050 will seek to project the MSA constructs to 2050.

MSAs and states are comprised of whole counties or county equivalent areas. How many MSAs will exist in 2050? What will be their geographic composition? New to the geographic landscape are Urban Core Tract Areas (UCTAs). UCTAs are defined as a set of contiguous whole census tracts which meet certain criteria. The starting place for UCTAs is a close variation of the set of urbanized areas associated with MSAs based on Census 2000. Note that an "urbanized area" as defined for the decennial census (based on census blocks) differs from the "Urban Core Tract Areas" as defined in Outlook2050 (based on census tracts). As with MSAs, Outlook 2050 will project the UCTA constructs to 2050.

Emerging Metropolitan Statistical Areas

An important part of Outlook 2050 is understanding how the number, location, composition, and characteristics of MSAs manifest themselves in the national landscape. One scenario in Outlook 2050 is that there is no change in the structure of MSAs. We know that this is an unlikely scenario. Over time, there will be emerging MSAs (newly designated MSAs), expanding MSAs (those experiencing an increase in the number of component counties), contracting MSAs (those experiencing a decrease in the number of component counties), and restructured MSAs.

Page url: http://proximityone.com/outlook2050/guide/index.html?introduction.htm