“By 2040 the San Francisco Bay Area is projected to add 2.4 million people, increasing total regional population from 7.2 million to 9.6 million, an increase of 30 percent or roughly 1 percent per year.”

 

Association of Bay Area Governments (2016)

Several population megatrends will impact the Bay Area in the coming decades. Across the US, cities and metropolitan areas are becoming more racially diverse, with one important consequence being a possible shift in the electorate. Even as Boomers live longer and retire later, Millennials – or the generation born between the early 1980s to the mid-1990s – will become the largest generation in the nation. Meanwhile, in counties and cities around the nation, the middle class is shrinking, with repercussions impacting all aspects of society. All these trends will also influence life in the Bay Area, as the region grows to almost 10 million residents by 2040.