From Forbes:
-Forget Miami, Los Angeles and New York--America's newest immigrant capitals are the country's recent boom towns.
Top of the list: Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla., with a 122% increase in its foreign-born population from 2000 to 2007, according to a Brookings Institution analysis of U.S. Census Bureau information. ...
Just as it's easy to spot America's boom towns by looking at where immigrant growth has increased the most, the places where the bubble has burst are also instantly recognizable. Case in point: Cape Coral, Fla., where 28% of the metro area's working immigrant community worked in construction-related jobs in 2007. Now that the Real Estate party's over, Cape Coral-Fort Myers is one of the worst places to ride out the economic storm.
The situation is much the same in Las Vegas, which ranks No. 4 on our list. It has been one of the fastest-growing cities in America in terms of gross domestic product (67% increase from 2001 to 2006) and foreign-born population (65% increase from 2001 to 2007). Census Bureau data show 58% of Sin City's working immigrants held vulnerable construction or service-sector jobs.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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8 comments:
"But actual American citizen workers didn't even much get in on the benefits of having those jobs building unneeded McMansions in the desert because we let in millions of immigrants who would do those jobs for $5 or $10 less per hour."
Not exactly true, I met two realtors during the bubble days one who had a family dairy the other who was also a cattle rancher. You'd think they'd have made a million off the backs of illegals but those houses are still sitting empty because they were built too far from sources of employment for the potential owners. Now if they could've just sold those same houses to the illegals who milked the cows and built the houses but that would've entailed an endless cycle of building suburbs that would then be populated by illegals who were supporting themselves building exurbs just a stones throw from the new suburb. Oh, wait...
I've gotta hand it to you, Sailer, you've had a tremendous influence on my thought processes.
Steve, didn't you hear McCain? We are a shining city on a hill. These guys just want to do the jobs Americans are too lazy to do. Maverick, maverick, straight talk express, my friends..
Exurb is a very annoying term.
But actual American citizen workers didn't even much get in on the benefits of having those jobs...
The one group that seems to have escaped serious scrutiny in all this mess is the construction industry. By May of this year, construction, mortgage, and real estate-related interests had already given over $95 million to political canddiates.
We are a shining city on a hill. These guys just want to do the jobs Americans are too lazy to do.
Now that one's perfect! A shining city full of lazy people...
I, for one, don't think we're a "shining city on a hill." But, shining or not, I'm all for the city and the hill it's on because it's my city and it's my hill. That's why I've lately grown very, very tired of these uber-patriotic types who love to hear and say shit like "God Bless America - it's the greatest country on earth!"
I'm all for patriotism, but not that kind of patriotism, because once you start telling yourself and others how great your country is - "Nation of immigrants! - "Give me your huddled masses!" - very dangerous people start taking advantage of you in some very dangerous ways.
Which is funny.
As in ironic.
I recall articles that the "boom" in Iraqi construction jobs did not benefit Iraqis, as Americans employed labor from Philippines and other countries, but did not deign to employ Iraqis in their own country to rebuild it.
Ah.
Sweet.
Irony.
Hey, when did Cape Coral eclipse Fort Myers as the name of the metropolitan area? (Evidently 2003.)
Fort Myers is a historic Southern town, at least at the core, where Thomas Edison wintered for decades, building a copy of his Menlo Park lab. Did even 50 people live in the Cape in 1960? Now it's 50,000-- no, make that 150,000.
Cape Coral is the second-largest city in Florida, after Jacksonville, the largest in the US (not counting some Alaskan "villages"). The reason for this is the canals. Some of these are fake, i.e., not connecting to the main canal system, the river, or the lake, but merely extended pools. You can imaging how angry those who bought lots along these were when they found out!
With this fly-by-night history, is anyone surprised the place is built by foreigners? (Are they legal?) I suspect, though, the five Cape Coral houses my grandmother owned at one time or another between 1969 and 1989 were all American-built.
Cape Coral is the second-largest city in Florida, after Jacksonville, the largest in the US (not counting some Alaskan "villages"). The reason for this is the canals. Some of these are fake, i.e., not connecting to the main canal system, the river, or the lake, but merely extended pools. You can imaging how angry those who bought lots along these were when they found out!
I'm sure living on those canals won't be quite so popular when a Cat. 3+ hurricane hits!
The fact that Las Vegas has been one of the fastest growing cities in this country for about 20 years now is emblematic of all that's wrong with this country. A city in the middle of nowhere, built by imported labor, so that Americans can indulge in the fantasy that you can get something for nothing.
"Captain Jack Aubrey said...
I, for one, don't think we're a "shining city on a hill.""
Amen to that. American Exceptionalism is killing this country. If our politicians - and our people - realized that ours is just a nation like any other, and behaved accordingly, we'd be a lot better off. We might even have a shot at surviving. As it is.......
.....pride goeth before a fall.
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