LEE POPULATION RISES 5% IN ONE YEAR

County gains 27,148 residents from ’05 to 06’

By Erin Gillespie

egillespie@news-press.com

            Carl Phillips moved to Fort Myers Beach last year with his family to open a business.  His coffee shop, Sole Café, has been hopping with residents and tourists alike.  Wife Carol and daughter Logan 9, enjoy the beach.  Logan also likes to fish and is a girl scout.  “She’s very happy here,” Carl Phillips said.  “She loves the life.”  Phillips is one of more than 27,000 people who have moved to Lee County in 2005-06.

            Lee County added more people to its population than any other Florida county in that year.

            According to figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau today (3-27-07), the county grew by 27,148 people, or five percent.

            Miami-Dade, the most populous county with 2.4 million people grew by about 24,000. 

            “Lee is pretty large to start with, so to have that growth is pretty rapid,” said Scott Cody, a demographer at the University of Florida’s Bureau of Economics and Business Research. Since the 2000 Census Lee County has grown by 30% - more than 130,000 people.  According to the university, which uses a different method to calculate growth, Lee’s is even higher.

            The university bureau’s estimate shows a 2006 population of 585,608, about 14,000 more than the Census Bureau.  Lee is the eighth-largest county in Florida.

            The Census Bureau uses tax returns and Medicare numbers to estimate population of counties, while UF uses electric bills customers and housing permits, Cody said.

            The census uses tax returns for its estimates. That method may exclude many college students who typically don’t file taxes or are entered as dependents on their parents’ tax returns Cody said.

            Immigration was the cause for about 6% of the increase.  Natural increases or the number of births minus deaths accounted for only 2%.  The majority of the increase to Lee County was from migration.  People moving from other states or other Florida counties to Lee accounted for about 92% of the increase.

            Carl Phillips and his family came from Greensboro, NC, to open the coffee shop, located at 1740 Estero Blvd, next to his brother-in-law’s shoe store, Island Soles.  His wife works for Helms Briscoe, booking conventions and meetings on line.  Many of the coffee shops customers are beach visitors and snowbirds, but he’s met neighbors as well. “I’m very happy here, and I’ve been welcomed by the community” Carl Phillips said.  “I turned 50, and I’m tired of moving”.

            The census bureau released population numbers for 2006 for every county in the nation.  The numbers tracked county growth from 2000 to 2006.  In those years Arizona’s Maricopa County, where Phoenix is, had the greatest growth with 696,000 people.  Lee County is ranked as the 59th-fastest growing county in the country.

            The 2006 information is the latest available from the Census Bureau and UF demographers.

                        Joan LaGuardia, spokeswoman for Lee County Development, said the county doesn’t have any more recent numbers. 

            Thirteen Florida counties made the Top 100 Fastest Growing counties list, including Collier at 97.

            Florida grows by about 3 million people every decade, Cody said.

            Flagler County in northern Florida was the fastest growing county in terms of percentages from 2000-2006, with a population increase of almost 67%.  The total population however is 83,084.