Bay Area's Growth Shifts To Urban Areas

"In the Bay Area and much of California, 2007 was a year for city dwellers.

New population estimates released Thursday show there are more than 38 million Californians - about 490,000 more than a year ago - and that much of the local growth had a distinctively urban character.

Population estimates for 478 cities released Thursday by the California Department of Finance show:

San Jose fell just short of 1 million people but added more than 17,000 new residents - more than in any year since the 2000 Census, with San Jose comprising more than half of the total growth for Santa Clara County.

Densely populated San Francisco notched its highest population on record, 824,525 people, gaining more than 12,000 new residents and growing by 1.5 percent.

"Mary Heim, California's state demographer, noted that the state had few of the booming suburban hot spots in 2007 that it had in previous years.

"What I've seen is the population growth seems more generally distributed than it was before," Heim said. "Before it was concentrated in these suburban areas that had a lot of housing" being built."