Bakersfield population growth outpaces peers
Percentage increase was best among California’s top-10 cities in 2019
Bakersfield’s population boomed in 2019, at least compared with the state’s other 10 most populous cities.
Bakersfield beat out cities like Sacramento and San Francisco in terms of population percentage growth in 2019, according to a new report by the California Department of Finance.
With the addition of 5,520 residents over 2019, the city’s population grew 1.4 percent, the highest of any of the state’s top-10 cities. The growth rate far outpaced the state as a whole, which increased by 0.2 percent, according to the report, and dwarfed many of the biggest cities in California.
In 2019, the city’s population reached 392,756.
OVERALL SLOWING
The state is experiencing a historically low growth trend, the report notes, which began during the Great Recession. Large metropolitan areas like San Diego and San Jose saw stagnant growth, while Los Angeles actually lost 0.6 percent of its population throughout the year.
The Finance Department’s report was good news for local city officials, who took the opportunity to boast about aspects of Bakersfield that drew people to the region.
City spokesman Joe Conroy said affordability and job opportunities contributed to the relatively large population increase. He noted oil and agriculture continued to do well in 2019, and technology companies helped contribute to the local economy.
The report also highlighted Bakersfield’s housing efforts over the past year. The city added 1,241 total units, according to the report, ranking 10th in the state.
“Jobs plus housing generally means more people,” Conroy wrote in an email.
The state report did not state cities’ previous rates of growth or offer projections for the future.
LOOKING AHEAD
For a sense of what kind of population growth may lie ahead, the city of Bakersfield’s top planner, Paul Johnson, pointed to a study released in
December by the Kern Council of Governments.
The study, based on economic trends and expectations that a recession would soon arrive, focused on countywide growth and offered no city-by-city projections. For the purposes of transportation planning, it predicted Kern’s overall population would increase more slowly than forecasters had predicted as recently as 2015.
Given the state’s strong housing affordability and employment outlook, it said the county was on track to expand by almost 11 percent to nearly 1.03 million by 2030, then grow another 20 percent by 2050.
That 10-year growth projection isn’t much different from the rate at which Kern’s population has expanded during the last 10 years. State Department of Finance data show the county has added 85,188 people, or 10.1 percent, since 2010.
SHORT COMMUTES
Ahron Hakimi, executive director of Kern COG, credited Bakersfield’s recent population growth to a variety of factors, including its small-town atmosphere and short commute times.
“It takes such a huge toll on the Bay Area and in Los Angeles, just getting to work or getting to school, or going to buy groceries is a 30-to-40 minute trip,” he said. “That’s one of the biggest differences between Bakersfield and other more metropolitan areas of the state, and I believe people value that.”
Kern County as a whole added 9,148 residents, growing by 1 percent. While California City, McFarland, Taft and Tehachapi all lost residents, Wasco saw the greatest percent increase of all cities within the county.
Wasco added 1,336 residents to reach a size of 28,884, a 4.8 percent increase.
Staff writer John Cox contributed to this report.