Detroit face unique demographic challenges and Michigan was the only state to show a net population decline in the decade ending in 2010.
RON DZWONKOWSKI writes in the DETROIT FREE PRESS:
In the period from 2000 through 2010, amid the economic upheaval that shook Michigan to its foundations, people in the state were remarkably consistent at one thing: dying.
Annual deaths for that 11-year period averaged 86,746 — with a range of just several thousand year to year in a state of about 10 million people. Meantime, births were declining almost every year over that same span, from 136,048 in 2000 down to 114,717 by 2010.
The result, according to a new analysis by Data Driven Detroit, was a 47% drop in Michigan’s natural population change from 2000-10. In 2000, births exceeded deaths by 49,060; by 2010, the margin was just 26,659. READ MORE.