22 California cities north of Sacramento with slight population losses
Redding and 21 other far Northern California cities lost residents over the past year, even as the state's overall population grew.
Redding got a slight population boost during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown and when state sanctions were in place; but those population gains were gone as of Jan. 1, 2025, according to state Department of Finance population estimates, released in May.
While Redding lost the same number of residents or more than all but one North State city on the list, that loss made a smaller dent in the city's overall population. The Shasta County seat is home to 93,534 people, more than than any other city on the list.
Anderson and Shasta Lake in Shasta County, too, were among 240 California cities where the population went down.
More: 12 California cities in North Coast, North State that are growing
Note to readers: If you appreciate the work we do here at the Redding Record Searchlight, please consider subscribing yourself or giving the gift of a subscription to someone you know.
Montague, Mount Shasta, Fort Jones, Etna, Tulelake, Dorris and Dunsmuir: These Siskiyou County cities saw small declines in their population ranging from five people each in Etna, Fort Jones and Montague to 15 in Dunsmuir and 23 in Mount Shasta.
Anderson, Redding and Shasta Lake: These Shasta County cities each saw population declines that ranged from 76 people in Shasta Lake and 81 each in Anderson and Redding.
Gridley and Biggs: These Butte County cities each saw population declines that ranged from 25 people in Biggs and 81 in Gridley.
Grass Valley and Nevada City: These Nevada County cities each saw population declines that ranged from 29 in Nevada City to 97 in Grass Valley.
Eureka, Fortuna, Ferndale, Trinidad, Blue Lake and Rio Dell: These Humboldt County cities each saw population declines that ranged from 50 people in Eureka and 47 in Fortuna to 6 in Ferndale and 2 in Trinidad.
Alturas: This Modoc County city saw a population decline of 5 people.
Williams: This Colusa County city saw a population decline of 27 people.
More: Shasta County sees more people leave while California population rebounds post-COVID
Jessica Skropanic is a features reporter for the Record Searchlight/USA Today Network. She covers science, arts, social issues and news stories. Follow her on Twitter @RS_JSkropanic and on Facebook. Join Jessica in the Get Out! Nor Cal recreation Facebook group. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today. Thank you.
This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Redding, other far Northern California cities losing population
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Los Angeles Times
an hour ago
- Los Angeles Times
South Dakota is on track to spend $2 billion on prisons in the next decade
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Two years after approving a tough-on-crime sentencing law, South Dakota is scrambling to deal with the price tag for that legislation: Housing thousands of additional inmates could require up to $2 billion to build new prisons in the next decade. That's a lot of money for a state with one of the lowest populations in the U.S., but a consultant said it's needed to keep pace with an anticipated 34% surge of new inmates in the next decade as a result of South Dakota's tough criminal justice laws. And while officials are grumbling about the cost, they don't seem concerned with the laws that are driving the need even as national crime rates are dropping. 'Crime has been falling everywhere in the country, with historic drops in crime in the last year or two,' said Bob Libal, senior campaign strategist at the criminal justice nonprofit the Sentencing Project. 'It's a particularly unusual time to be investing $2 billion in prisons.' Some Democratic-led states have worked to close prisons and enact changes to lower inmate populations, but that's a tough sell in Republican-majority states such as South Dakota that believe in a tough-on-crime approach, even if that leads to more inmates. For now, state lawmakers have set aside a $600-million fund to replace the overcrowded 144-year-old South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls, making it one of the most expensive taxpayer-funded projects in South Dakota history. But South Dakota will likely need more prisons. Phoenix-based Arrington Watkins Architects, which the state hired as a consultant, has said South Dakota will need 3,300 additional beds in coming years, bringing the cost to $2 billion. Driving up costs is the need for facilities with different security levels to accommodate the inmate population. Concerns about South Dakota's prisons first arose four years ago, when the state was flush with COVID-19 relief funds. Lawmakers wanted to replace the penitentiary, but they couldn't agree on where to put the prison and how big it should be. A task force of state lawmakers assembled by Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden is expected to decide that in a plan for prison facilities this July. Many lawmakers have questioned the proposed cost, but few have called for criminal justice changes that would make such a large prison unnecessary. 'One thing I'm trying to do as the chairman of this task force is keep us very focused on our mission,' said Lt. Gov. Tony Venhuizen. 'There are people who want to talk about policies in the prisons or the administration or the criminal justice system more broadly, and that would be a much larger project than the fairly narrow scope that we have.' South Dakota's incarceration rate of 370 per 100,000 people is an outlier in the Upper Midwest. Neighbors Minnesota and North Dakota have rates of under 250 per 100,000 people, according to the Sentencing Project, a criminal justice advocacy nonprofit. Nearly half of South Dakota's projected inmate population growth can be attributed to a law approved in 2023 that requires some violent offenders to serve the full-length of their sentences before parole, according to a report by Arrington Watkins. When South Dakota inmates are paroled, about 40% are ordered to return to prison, the majority of those due to technical violations such as failing a drug test or missing a meeting with a parole officer. Those returning inmates made up nearly half of prison admissions in 2024. Sioux Falls criminal justice attorney Ryan Kolbeck blamed the high number of parolees returning in part on the lack of services in prison for people with drug addictions. 'People are being sent to the penitentiary but there's no programs there for them. There's no way it's going to help them become better people,' he said. 'Essentially we're going to put them out there and house them for a little bit, leave them on parole and expect them to do well.' South Dakota also has the second-greatest disparity of Native Americans in its prisons. While Native Americans make up one-tenth of South Dakota's population, they make up 35% of those in state prisons, according to Prison Policy Initiative, a nonprofit public policy group. Though legislators in the state capital, Pierre, have been talking about prison overcrowding for years, they're reluctant to dial back on tough-on-crime laws. For example, it took repeated efforts over six years before South Dakota reduced a controlled substance ingestion law to a misdemeanor from a felony for the first offense, aligning with all other states. 'It was a huge, Herculean task to get ingestion to be a misdemeanor,' Kolbeck said. Former penitentiary warden Darin Young said the state needs to upgrade its prisons, but he also thinks it should spend up to $300 million on addiction and mental illness treatment. 'Until we fix the reasons why people come to prison and address that issue, the numbers are not going to stop,' he said. Without policy changes, the new prisons are sure to fill up, criminal justice experts agreed. 'We might be good for a few years, now that we've got more capacity, but in a couple years it'll be full again,' Kolbeck said. 'Under our policies, you're going to reach capacity again soon.' Raza writes for the Associated Press.
Newsweek
6 hours ago
- Newsweek
Map Shows Where Homebuyers Can Still Buy Homes for Under $300K
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. While a majority of U.S. homebuyers are facing sky-high prices and historically elevated mortgage rates, there are places across the country where it is still possible to find a home for under $300,000, according to recent data shared by Why It Matters The median sale price of a typical home in the United States before the COVID-19 pandemic was under $300,000, but has since climbed to well above $400,000. In April, the latest data available from Redfin, the typical U.S. home would cost buyers a median price of $437,864, up 1.3 percent from a year earlier. Historically elevated mortgage rates and skyrocketing prices—a consequence of the pandemic-driven homebuying frenzy, as well as the chronic shortage of homes that has plagued the U.S. market for years—have pushed many Americans to the sidelines, hurting first-time homebuyers the most. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the U.S. market needs 367,000 more home listings at a maximum price of $170,000, 416,000 more priced at or below $255,000 and 364,000 more priced under $340,000 to fix the existing affordability gap. However, if you know where to look, there are still pockets of the market where buying a home can be more affordable, especially in areas where inventory is rising the most. What To Know The most affordable cities in the country are concentrated in the Midwest and the South, according to the company's report. Several major cities, including Detroit, St. Louis, Memphis, Baltimore, Indianapolis, and Pittsburgh, enter the 145-city-strong list of places where a typical home costs $300,000 or less. Among the biggest cities with the most affordable home prices are: Detroit, MI ($109,000) Birmingham, AL ($181,500) St. Louis, MO ($199,999) Memphis, TN ($218,200) Baltimore, MD ($249,900) Lubbock, TX ($249,975) Indianapolis, IN ($268,500) Pittsburgh, PA ($274,900) Decatur, GA ($279,000) Kansas City, MO ($281,250) Oklahoma City, OK ($285,855) Louisville, KY ($289,900) Tulsa, OK ($289,900) Baton Rouge, LA ($289,945) Philadelphia, PA ($289,999) El Paso, TX ($295,000) Columbus, OH ($295,900) Clearwater, FL ($299,250) Jacksonville, FL ($299,900) Myrtle Beach, SC ($299,900) Ocala, FL ($299,999) San Antonio, TX ($300,000) Some of these cities have experienced a rapid home value appreciation during the pandemic, and even as prices remain relatively low compared to the national average of more expensive metros, they may still be unaffordable for locals. According to a monthly payment for a 30-year fixed loan at 6.8 percent on a Detroit home, with a median list price of $109,000, would cost a homebuyer roughly $762 a month "after taxes, insurance, and interest, and with a 20 percent down payment of $21,800," the company wrote. While affordability is rare on the East Coast, with the Northeast still experiencing acute housing shortages, homebuyers can find homes under $300,000 in cities such as Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore. What People Are Saying Hannah Jones, senior economic research analyst at said: "The majority of these cities are in the South or Midwest. These regions tend to offer more affordable homes as they have generally more space to grow and lower demand than a high-density city (such as New York or Boston)." Of the affordable cities on the East Coast, she said: "Some of these cities, such as Detroit or Baltimore, have gone through challenging periods. However, recent investment and growth have put them back on the map as appealing, affordable places to put down roots." What Happens Next While homeowners continue to struggle with high mortgage rates and rising housing costs, recent trends in the U.S. housing market suggest that the rapid growth in home prices that has characterized the last five years is slowing, and may even be reversing. The number of homes for sale in the U.S. is now near pre-pandemic levels, while in some parts of the country, especially in Southern states like Texas and Florida, which have built the most new homes over the past few years, they are even higher. Most importantly, much of this rising inventory is sitting idle on the market because buyers just cannot afford it or think it is worth waiting to see how things might turn out in a few months. The result is that sellers, who now outnumber buyers by an estimated 500,000, according to Redfin, are increasingly being forced to lower their asking prices to attract reluctant buyers. This downward pressure on prices could finally turn the U.S. housing market solidly in favor of buyers, although stubbornly high mortgage rates and other rising housing costs might stop them from fully enjoying this change.
8 hours ago
South Dakota is on track to spend $2 billion on prisons in the next decade
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -- Two years after approving a tough-on-crime sentencing law, South Dakota is scrambling to deal with the price tag for that legislation: Housing thousands of additional inmates could require up to $2 billion to build new prisons in the next decade. That's a lot of money for a state with one of the lowest populations in the U.S., but a consultant said it's needed to keep pace with an anticipated 34% surge of new inmates in the next decade as a result of South Dakota's tough criminal justice laws. And while officials are grumbling about the cost, they don't seem concerned with the laws that are driving the need even as national crime rates are dropping. 'Crime has been falling everywhere in the country, with historic drops in crime in the last year or two,' said Bob Libal, senior campaign strategist at the criminal justice nonprofit The Sentencing Project. 'It's a particularly unusual time to be investing $2 billion in prisons.' Some Democratic-led states have worked to close prisons and enact changes to lower inmate populations, but that's a tough sell in Republican-majority states such as South Dakota that believe in a tough-on-crime approach, even if that leads to more inmates. For now, state lawmakers have set aside a $600 million fund to replace the overcrowded 144-year-old South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls, making it one of the most expensive taxpayer-funded projects in South Dakota history. But South Dakota will likely need more prisons. Phoenix-based Arrington Watkins Architects, which the state hired as a consultant, has said South Dakota will need 3,300 additional beds in coming years, bringing the cost to $2 billion. Driving up costs is the need for facilities with different security levels to accommodate the inmate population. Concerns about South Dakota's prisons first arose four years ago, when the state was flush with COVID-19 relief funds. Lawmakers wanted to replace the penitentiary, but they couldn't agree on where to put the prison and how big it should be. A task force of state lawmakers assembled by Republican Gov. Larry Rhoden is expected to decide that in a plan for prison facilities this July. Many lawmakers have questioned the proposed cost, but few have called for criminal justice changes that would make such a large prison unnecessary. 'One thing I'm trying to do as the chairman of this task force is keep us very focused on our mission,' said Lieutenant Gov. Tony Venhuizen. 'There are people who want to talk about policies in the prisons or the administration or the criminal justice system more broadly, and that would be a much larger project than the fairly narrow scope that we have.' South Dakota's incarceration rate of 370 per 100,000 people is an outlier in the Upper Midwest. Neighbors Minnesota and North Dakota have rates of under 250 per 100,000 people, according to the Sentencing Project, a criminal justice advocacy nonprofit. Nearly half of South Dakota's projected inmate population growth can be attributed to a law approved in 2023 that requires some violent offenders to serve the full-length of their sentences before parole, according to a report by Arrington Watkins. When South Dakota inmates are paroled, about 40% are ordered to return to prison, the majority of those due to technical violations such as failing a drug test or missing a meeting with a parole officer. Those returning inmates made up nearly half of prison admissions in 2024. Sioux Falls criminal justice attorney Ryan Kolbeck blamed the high number of parolees returning in part on the lack of services in prison for people with drug addictions. 'People are being sent to the penitentiary but there's no programs there for them. There's no way it's going to help them become better people,' he said. 'Essentially we're going to put them out there and house them for a little bit, leave them on parole and expect them to do well.' South Dakota also has the second-greatest disparity of Native Americans in its prisons. While Native Americans make up one-tenth of South Dakota's population, they make up 35% of those in state prisons, according to Prison Policy Initiative, a nonprofit public policy group. Though legislators in the state capital, Pierre, have been talking about prison overcrowding for years, they're reluctant to dial back on tough-on-crime laws. For example, it took repeated efforts over six years before South Dakota reduced a controlled substance ingestion law to a misdemeanor from a felony for the first offense, aligning with all other states. 'It was a huge, Herculean task to get ingestion to be a misdemeanor,' Kolbeck said. Former penitentiary warden Darin Young said the state needs to upgrade its prisons, but he also thinks it should spend up to $300 million on addiction and mental illness treatment. 'Until we fix the reasons why people come to prison and address that issue, the numbers are not going to stop,' he said. Without policy changes, the new prisons are sure to fill up, criminal justice experts agreed. 'We might be good for a few years, now that we've got more capacity, but in a couple years it'll be full again,' Kolbeck said. 'Under our policies, you're going to reach capacity again soon.'
