California Beaches Blog

Sand City, Calif.–Pouring over the data from California’s Department of Finance, I looked for some trends in California’s population, and especially its beach population. Was it shrinking, growing or staying the same?

The most recent data from 2008-2009 year shows that the 16 coastal counties in California all  grew in population. Coastal cities saw growth of 0% (only one)  to over 1%. The fastest growing city on the coast, Sand City in Monterey County just north of Monterey and south of Santa Cruz, grew by a whopping 4.7%!

What is Sand City’s vision for its future as it expands?  According to the city, limited coastal development has been a long-standing goal of Sand City with 75% of Sand City’s coastline targeted for open space and habitat protection in conjunction with limited coastal development. There’s a Memorandum of Understanding between Sand City, the Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District, and the California Department of Parks and Recreation stating this. From a tourism perspective, many of the affordable hotels outside of Monterey are located in Seaside next to Sand City, and point to the possibility of growth as a tourism destination at some point. Sand City lacks hotels currently, but is popular for its shopping malls that are easily accessible along the coast.

No cities along the California coast actually lost population, but Eureka in Humboldt County was the rare exception that didn’t grow. It had 0% growth.

San Diego County grew the most of any coastal county at 1.3%. Many counties hovered near that figure or just under it, but the smallest growth was seen in Humboldt County where growth was at .04% county-wide. While the fastest growing county is the sunniest, warmest, and closest to the U.S. / Mexico border, the slowest coastal growth was in the wettest, coolest climate that’s home to Redwood forests and the world’s tallest trees, some dating back thousands of years!  While California’s least populated counties lost population, the coast did not.