Local Population and Employment Projection Techniques

Forecasting populations, beyond fifteen years requires an encyclopedic knowledge of the national, regional, and local socioeconomic, political, and physical environments, combined with a large measure of imagination. Projections of this type are increasingly required by private and public decision-makers. The authors, who are top researchers in this area, have provided a comprehensive analysis that goes beyond the standard fifteen-year forecast.Local Population and Employment Projection Techniques presents a set of programmed models that project the populations of minor civil divisions (MCDs) up to fifty years and employment of counties up to twenty-five years. Three classes of MCD population models are presented, each of which is constrained at the county scale by county projections that are, constrained by state and national projections. The simplest model extrapolates a trend in the historical growth rates of MCDs, while a second method is based on the distributional properties of projections made by regional or county agencies. A procedure is provided for allocating the projections to an alternative set of spatial units.The second part of this book provides employment projection methods. Four models are presented: one is a simple regression model, and there are three step-down models: one of which is a constant share model; a second model weights the constant share projections by population projections; and a third includes a competitive component. In addition, each portion of the book contains three major pieces: an overview of available projection models; state, county, and, in the case of population projections, minor civil division models; computer programs, user's instructions, and the input and output of a sample problem.