Page 38 - Grenada County, MS Build Better Together 2040 Plan

Grenada County Build Better Together 2040 Plan

Population Outlook for Grenada County

Population projections are an important component of a long-range planning process. They help determine and
quantify the demands that will be placed on public facilities and services based on the potential pace and scale
of the community’s physical growth. Projections reflect local, regional, national and international trends and
offer a basis to prepare for the future. However, forecasting population changes can be challenging, particularly
for the long term, because it is often difficult to account for all circumstances that may arise. Therefore, it will be
important for the Partnership to monitor population and economic growth continually to account for both
short- and longer-term shifts that can influence development activity and trends in the community and larger
region.

Alternative Growth Scenarios

Demographers caution that population projections become trickier as the geographic area gets smaller, making
city- and county-level populations the most difficult to forecast. This is because local population change is
strongly influenced by less predictable factors such as housing prices and options, availability of vacant land to
develop and results from economic development efforts. Adding to the forecasting challenge in Grenada
County, as in any community that has seen minimal growth or even some population loss in recent years, is the
lack of a clear trend to which traditional projection methods may be applied.

Given this context, the chart in this section provides a comparison of several potential scenarios for future
population change in Grenada County. The projections build on the recently released Census 2020 figure of
21,629 for Grenada County and identify potential population levels in five-year increments out to 2040.

Projections Based on Varying Quantities and Rates of Growth

A common population projection method is to extend historical trends to future years. Linear growth forecasts
are “straight line” projections that result in the same absolute number of new persons being added to the
population in each period. Due to Grenada County’s population trend being negative (i.e., population loss
experienced over the past 20 years), the Linear Growth forecast for Grenada County actually results in a
decrease in population in each period. This also produces an increasing rate of loss over time as the same
amount is being subtracted from an ever-shrinking base (in the case of Grenada County, losing 277 residents per
decade).

Exponential growth projections produce higher numbers than linear because the numerical change gets larger in
each period while the rate of growth stays constant. This is similar to the power of compound growth in a
savings account; the interest (i.e., growth) rate may not change, but it is being applied to an ever-expanding
balance, resulting in larger and larger interest earnings over time. In the case of Grenada County, where the
population base has been shrinking, the Exponential Growth scenario results in just 10 more residents by 2040
than the Linear Growth scenario. And because Grenada County has continued to lose population over the past
20 years, these two forecast methods that build upon past trends both generate future projections resulting in
ongoing population decline.

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