Adair County's population grows

again-last year by 1.1%, to 16,460

Adair County's population jumped again in 1996, to 16,460, according to the latest estimate released by the Kentucky State Data Center at the University of Louisville.

The county increased 174 persons from the preceding year, the center estimated.

The Lake Cumberland Area Development District was tied with the Barren River Add as third fastest growing ADD among the 15 districts, with an annual growth rate of 1.0 %. Only the Bluegrass ADD, with 1.3% increase, and the Northern Kentucky, with 1.2%, grew faster among the area development districts.

Adair County's increase was the 46th largest increase among Kentucky's 120 counties. And it made Adair County the 63rd most populous county in the state, up from 64th the year before and 65th in 1990.

Adair County's 1.1% annual population increase exceeded the state average of 0.7% and the LCADD average of 1.0% and made it the 46th fastest growing county in the state in 1996 in terms of percentage increase.

On a percentage basis, Adair County was the fastest growing of the Commonwealth's three principal counties; Jefferson County had a 0.0% annual increase, Fayette somewhat better at 0.8%.

All of neighboring counties had population increases:

Casey County grew by 0.4%, or 52 people, to 14,512 people.

Cumberland county was up 0.8%, or 58 people, to 6,977.

Green County also grew 0.8%, or 87 actual growth, to 10,582.

Metcalfe County grew by 53 people, or 0.6% to 9,360 population.

Russell County's population exploded 2.6%, by 421 people, to 16,403.

Taylor County's population grew by 0.4%, an actual increase of 96, for a total of 22,712.

Dramatic projections

If projections were based solely on the 1996 growth percentages, they would reveal some startling prospects for Adair, Russell, and Taylor Counties, as calculated by Columbia! magazine's statistical department:

Sometime this year Russell County would shoot past Adair County in population, having 16,827 persons to Adair's 16,641.

In the year 2012, Russell County's population of 24,730 would be greater than Taylor County's 24,210 in that year, while Adair County would have 19,609.

In 2043, Adair County would have a population of 27,525 to Taylor's 27,399. Russell County would have 54,802.

As soon as 100 years, Adair County would have 49,152; Taylor, 33,855. But Russell County would be a county nearer to present day Fayette County, with 213,603 people.

In only a brief 200 years, in 2196, at the 1996 growth percentages, those of us still around would see populations which would look like this: Taylor County, a mere 50,265; Adair County, a metropolitan community of 145,181; but Russell County would have a population of 2,711,410-an Atlanta size megalopolis which would have to spill over into defenseless adjacent counties or have a mass of people living in towering skyscrapers or in multifamily sampans on Lake Cumberland.