re: 2020 Census Results for Louisiana Cities

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New Orleans ---- 1,271,845 --- (+6.89%) --- 1,189,866
Baton Rouge ------ 870,569 --- (+5.41%) --- 825,905
Lafayette -------- 478,384 --- (+2.49%) --- 466.750
Shreveport ------- 393,406 --- (-1.30%) --- 398,604
Lake Charles ----- 222,402 --- (+11.42%) --- 199,607

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Looks initially promising that the state's largest metro areas are growing (except Shreveport), but it's an ugly picture when you realize that the overall US population growth rate for this period was about 7%.

Lake Charles is looking good at least. Impressive considering the census was taken in a year when the area dealt with an insane amount of major weather events.

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Baton Rouge --- 227,470 --- (-0.9%) --- 229,493

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In Baton Rouge's defense, those are not people who voluntarily moved out. They were all shot and killed.

Same percent as Livingston

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So the biggest gain percentage wise was Lake Charles and its metropolitan area.

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we had all those plant expansions for years. Laura likely put a dent into those #s

Bet a good part of the 11.7 are regretting their decision to go back to NOLA.

The difference between Shreveport and Bossier is that Shreveport has wide class variety and Bossier not so much. The richest people in the metro almost always live in Shreveport (South Highlands, Ellerbe, Southern Trace) and then you have the poorest (West I-49 and Cedar Grove). Bossier is mostly middle to slightly upper middle class white families. The well to do families in Shreveport are considered more class and make more than the well to do Bossier families.. Bossier is mostly rednecks making 70k a year.

The Calcasieu census showed growth of 12.5%, but school enrollment from one year ago is -10.6%. So, Laura was a significant hit, and I think is still driving people away.

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Lafayette had decent growth, but every other parish in Acadiana lost population.

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This shouldn't be surprising. For instance, I'm fairly certain that the only town in Vermilion parish that gained population is Maurice. Most of the growth around the area is either in Lafayette, Youngsville, Broussard, and more recently and on a much smaller scale Maurice.

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Shreveport ------ 187,593 --- (-5.9%) --- 199,311

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Perhaps this will change now that higher oil prices have made drawn more attention to the Haynesville play?

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Had the oil and gas industry been more stable in the 1980s, Lafayette-New Iberia would probably look a lot larger by now.

I love Lafayette, it's it's unfortunately stagnant when there's turmoil in the energy industry.

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Given the lousy decade the O&G industry had, Lafayette did good to grow as much as it did. Its efforts in diversifying are paying off, too, although it's difficult to replace a cash cow like the energy industry.

The problems in the surrounding parishes of Acadiana are not unlike every other rural parish in the state, and in a lot of ways, much of the entire country.