without immigrants, would California have ended up like New York in the 70s?

[freepcrusher]

ok its a pretty loaded question so let me explain. All indicators I have found point that California's population would have declined by a million or two people since 2000 without immigration.
Take a look at what happened to New York in the 1970s. The cities, which had already started to lose population, had accelerated population loss and the industrial upstate towns on the Erie Canal started to die off. And there was nothing to offset it. The baby boom had long since ended, (some of the old suburban neighborhoods in Nassau actually lost up to ten percent of their population) and the great migrations from the south and immigration from other countries had slowed down and in some cases reversed. As a result the state suffered from economic atrophy and lost five congressional districts.

[politicus]

The climate makes California an attractive place to live and its position at the Pacific makes it an attractive place to set up a business. The state would have attracted immigration from other parts of the US no matter what, and this internal migration would have been greater if there wasnt any competition for unskilled jobs from Latin American immigrants.

[Torie]

Probably with fewer Hispanics coming in, fewer working to lower middle class whites would have left. The Asian influx might mean fewer IT type whites around as well (and more lower middle class whites since housing costs have probably been pushed up by the Asian influx). Economic factors play a big role. Who  knew?

[BigSkyBob]

ok its a pretty loaded question so let me explain. All indicators I have found point that California's population would have declined by a million or two people since 2000 without immigration.

GIGO.

What caused California's population decrease among those residing in the state prior to 2000 was emigration to other states. "Without immigration" the people who fled the state might very well have chosen to stay.