The Year 2000 Census figures are in and compiled. Sussex County has experienced an overall 38% increase in population in the last ten years. Of that increase nearly all of it was in the eastern third of the county! The areas close to the beach have grown as much as double and triple in population. The population of Delaware overall has increased 18% with Kent County not growing at all and some growth in the Wilmington suburbs.

The beaches of Delaware are well known, mostly by the politicians, bureaucrats, consultants and military folks in the Washington DC metropolitan area. Rehoboth Beach has been known as "The Nation's Summer Capital" for decades as it's summer population is swelled by those who work in and for the Federal Government, it's related organizations, consulting firms and the surrounding Military.

These DC folks have been vacationing here most of their adult lives and now, at ages from 38 to 65, they are retiring to the place they love. As a result our population is aging too. Hospital and health care services are booming out of proportion to the rest of our area growth as these aging Baby Boomers retire here with good health insurance from their government oriented careers. Restaurants, cultural aspects and shopping are growing too as these are some of the things that our retirement lifestyle folks enjoy. There are more to come. The youngest of the Boomers are still employed and there are even more of them who have grown up loving our beach areas.

Accordingly, Sussex County had about 113,229 people in 1990. There are about 43,409 more people as of last year for a total of 156,638, according to the Census figures. As the county has been forced to allow higher density and better planned communities, there will be far more people living near the beaches as this decade unfolds.

There has been very little growth in the beach towns as they have curtailed more population rather than welcome it. The areas near the beaches are bursting with new communities at the rate of 2,000 building permits a year now. At this rate of growth we will see something over a quarter of a million people by 2010 -- but we can't predict whether the growth rate will increase because of demand or slow due to county and state government curtailments of permits. Either way prices will increase. The prices in the towns have increased the most because of their no-growth stance. For example Rehoboth added only 269 residents, a comparatively paltry 18% growth and a primary cause of price increases for homes of about 300% in the last decade. After all, most folks vacationed in Rehoboth and now want to live there. The few that can afford it and will pay the prices have moved into the few available spots. The rest are as close as they want to be when they figure proximity and price.

We can expect prices in the towns, especially Rehoboth Beach, Dewey Beach, Lewes Beach and Bethany Beach to continue their well above average increases. Meanwhile we can expect the homes closest to these towns to increase at lesser percentages according to the distance they are from them. There is a little natural kink in this prediction, however. The beach towns are sitting on a strand with the waters of the bays behind them. As the beach area communities expand to take in the available land, the expansions will be forced more inland.

More and more people will take advantage of the proximity and cost advantages of life in the manufactured home communities. Some call them trailer parks or mobile home communities, but that is a misnomer. These strong, economical, well insulated, and attractive homes are neither trail-behinds nor are they mobile. They are moved in, placed on a rented lot and stay there. They do not appreciate much, if at all, but the lifestyle for the dollar spent is fantastic. There are some bumper stickers to be seen on the backs of some senior citizen's cars, "I'm spending my children's inheritance!". This sums it up. Most of the people in these luxurious manufactured home communities have other investments and buy their home as an investment in lifestyle, NOT as an investment in real estate. In fact, by law, they are not real estate but personal property with a title just like a car or a motor home. I will do a future article on manufactured homes and the boom in the communities where they are placed.

Meanwhile, we simultaneously enjoy and struggle with our growth here. Many of those who move here work feverishly to keep others out. More and more executives, politicians and bureaucrats from the DC metro area now spend their retirement hours making it more and more difficult and expensive for the next arrivals to purchase here. Their influence is not all bad however. They are forcing our standards slowly upward. At the same time, those who left the cities to come here are often the cause of pushing us to emulate what they so recently fled. The result is higher costs and more regulation. Whatever you pay for a home now and whatever difficulties there are in meeting the various regulations, there is one thing certain, prices will go up in the long run and regulations of every kind will continue to grow more restrictive! We are growing FAST, one of the fastest growing counties in the nation, and we are having growing pains. Those growing pains will continue for all of us as we mature into an even better and more full featured group of communities!