Nov. 3, 1957
Los Angeles
I typed the words "Southern California Research Council" and I could already imagine the snoring. What, no crime? Hear me out.
Its question was an essential one: How many people would be in what
they called the metropolitan area (Los Angeles and Orange counties) in
1970?
The principles sound easy: Projected birth rate plus projected migration minus the death rate.
But it wasn’t so simple. The council had revised its estimated figure
of 8 million announced 1955. The new projection was even higher: 9.4
million in the two-county area. (If you want to know if the projections
were right skip to here).*
First, the birth rate: As I’ve noted elsewhere on the blog, the U.S.
birth rate declined in the first four decades of the 20th century,
otherwise known as the "baby bust." This was countered by the baby boom
that began in 1946.
Now the death rate: It was declining because of progress in sanitation
and health. More people were reaching "the upper age brackets where
females outnumber the males." Sound familiar?
And migration. Robert P. Collier of Occidental College, one of the
research study leaders, said: "We did, however, assume there would be a
continuation of smog and traffic problems. But we did not look for them
to get significantly worse. After all, it is possible that the smog
situation, for instance, could get so bad that there would be a general
exodus of people. But this isn’t probable."
(In case you are wondering, the Southern California Research Council
wrote many traffic studies in the 1950s. Anyone who thinks traffic in
Los Angeles is a new or even somewhat recent problem is merely ignorant
of the region’s history).
Was the study right? They nailed it: "The composition of the labor
force will change, with women and workers under 25 constituting greater
proportions by 1970."
*And the magic number? The projection was 9.4 million, bracketed by 9
million on the low end and 9.8 million at the high end. According to
the 1970 U.S. census,
Los Angeles County had a population of 7,032,075 and Orange County had
1,420,386 for a total of 8.45 million, ahead of the 1955 estimate but
below the 1957 revision.
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