Browse > Home / REAL ESTATE / St. Bernard rebound tops census

St. Bernard rebound tops census

March 25, 2008

In an aftershock from Hurricane Katrina’s demographic shakeup, the nation’s fastest-growing community is not some sun-drenched or leafy suburb marked by a red-hot housing market and new subdivisions that sprout up seemingly overnight.

Instead, the honor goes to storm-ravaged St. Bernard Parish, where blocks of homes remain gutted in some areas and the real estate market is so depressed that two-thirds of home sales are to the Road Home program.

And the competition isn’t even close.

St. Bernard’s population exploded 42.9 percent last year, easily the biggest increase for any U.S. parish or county, according to data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Hurricane-scarred Orleans Parish was second with a 13.8 percent population increase, edging out Pinal County in Arizona, a Phoenix suburb that grew by 11.5 percent.

“We always knew St. Bernard was the No. 1 place to live. Now the whole country knows it,” quipped Catherine Serpas, who lives in rural eastern St. Bernard.

Of course, this all comes a year after St. Bernard and New Orleans topped a national list of communities with the largest population losses in the wake of Katrina’s devastation.

Even with the sizable gains of the past year, St. Bernard’s population is less than half its pre-Katrina benchmark of about 65,000, while New Orleans has regained about two-thirds of its pre-storm population of 450,000.

A bit misleading

“It’s certainly encouraging that people are returning,” said Greg Rigamer, a demographer with GCR & Associates who has closely tracked the area’s population growth since Katrina. “But to call these the fastest-growing parishes in the country is like someone who owned Bear Stearns stock when it went from $100 to $1 overnight and then got excited when it rose to $2 the next day because their investment just doubled.”

Written by admin · Filed Under REAL ESTATE 

Comments

Got something to say?