Report: Washington County to balloon to more than 500,000 population over next 50 years

The hard-driving forces that have made St. George and the rest of Washington County one of the fastest-growing populations in the U.S. are expected to continue for the foreseeable future, ballooning the area to more than 500,000 people over the next 50 years, according to new state population projections released this week.

The official projections, which are used by state and local planners to guide development of everything from new social services to road infrastructure, were unveiled Monday out of the Kem C. Gardner Institute at the University of Utah, where demographers described a future where continued population growth will remain a driving force for governments across the state.

The state would grow to some 5.8 million people by 2065, according to the projections, with most of the growth emanating out of the urban areas already built up along the Interstate 15 corridor. Utah County would grow to some 1.6 million people and nearly overtake Salt Lake County as the state's largest, and all of the smaller cities and towns stretching south to St. George would also see growth.

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Cedar City and the rest of Iron County are projected to grow to nearly 90,000 population, meaning it would look in 2065 much more like St. George and Washington County look today.

But nowhere would the growth be as obvious as in Washington County, which showed the state's fastest rate of growth, averaging annual growth rates of 3 percent to 4 percent over the next 10 years before slowing to 1 to 2 percent annual growth in the following decades. The numbers would quickly add up, with a cumulative growth of 229 percent by 2065. The county would go from representing 5.2 percent of the total state population today to 8.7 percent.

In addition, the prevalence of tourism, vacation homes, rentals, snowbird-type second homes and other elements mean that on any given day county residents could find themselves sharing space with plenty of visitors who don't actually count toward the official population, said Pam Perlich, director of of demographic research at the Gardner Policy Institute.

“You’ve got to do kind of a plus-20 percent on top of everything to think about the demand for water, the demand for transportation, the demand for retail, the demand for all kinds of things,” she said.

Like the rest of the state, Washington County is expected to see "natural growth," or a higher number of births than deaths, high above the averages seen across the U.S. Utah's fertility rates rank ahead of other states, an attribute typically associated with the predominant culture of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

But unlike the rest of the state, Washington County is actually projected to see even higher rates of growth through in-migration, a function of the area's natural attractiveness to retirees and professionals drawn in by the natural surroundings and 300-plus days of sunshine.

According to the projections, Washington County's in-migration would account for the vast majority of the growth — 5,262 of 6,174 new residents in 2017 would be move-ins, for example, and the trend would hold for the foreseeable future.

"It's a very attractive place," Perlich said. "The challenge for the policymakers and the people who live there is how to grow and how to preserve the character that brought everybody to this place."

While the projections are only an educated guess at what could happen in the future, they follow trendlines being set today.

The most recent estimates for the county's 2016 population had it at 160,245, which the U.S. Census showed as a 3.1 percent annual growth rate, the sixth-fastest rate among all metro areas in the U.S.

Going back to 2010, the Census estimates the county has added more than 22,000 new residents.

The numbers do fall short of some recent predictions.

The population projections are typically updated every five years, and the previous iteration, released in 2012, had Washington County at more than 580,000 population by 2060. Going back to the projections done before that, released in 2008, demographers projected the county to more than 860,000 people by 2060.

Perlich attributed some of the inaccuracy to the timing, with the 2008 figures utilizing inflated numbers driven by the mid-2000s housing boom. The Great Recession followed, and state and policymakers alike project a slower, more consistent growth cycle moving forward.

Like the rest of the country, the state is projected to trend older as the years wear on, with the statewide median age rising from 30.7 years old in 2015 to 38.3 years old in 2065.

The Utah Legislature funds the demographic research done to develop the projections, which are then used to guide decision making across the state. To build the projections, the Gardner Policy Institute works with the Governor's Office of Management and Budget, the Office of the Legislative Fiscal Analyst, the Utah Association of Governments and other research entities.

"The increase in population is projected to account for more than 1.2 million new households in Utah, a 126 percent increase," said Jim Wood, Ivory-Boyer senior fellow at the Gardner Policy Institute. "The projected acceleration of population and household growth will increase demand and prices in the housing market over the next few years."

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