Martin County lost 130 residents between 2007 and 2008, and growth in the rest of the Treasure Coast has slowed to a crawl, according to population estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Department.

St. Lucie County, once the one of the fastest-growing counties in the country, saw a population increase of 1.9 percent. Indian River County grew by less than a percent.

But even in the midst of the housing market crash, the Hispanic population is growing in all Treasure Coast counties.

Hispanic residents in 2008 made up 15 percent of the St. Lucie County population and 10 percent in both Indian River and Martin counties. In 2000, all three counties were less than 10 percent Hispanic.

Martin County’s population decrease came mostly from the loss of nearly 350 white residents between 2007 and 2008.

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY

2008 population: 132,315

•Whites: 117,372

•Blacks: 11,837

•Hispanics: 13,591

MARTIN COUNTY

2008 population: 138,660

•Whites: 125,525

•Blacks: 8,200

•Hispanics: 14,482

ST. LUCIE COUNTY

2008 population: 265,108

•Whites: 208,551

•Blacks: 47,481

•Hispanics: 41,666

By Hillary Copsey

Tags: census, crash, hispanic, housing, saw

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 8:59 am and is filed under Stuart. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.