The release, which will be used to redraw legislative district lines, covers population down to the block level, voting-age population and information on race and Latino origin. The census, for the first time, allowed people to report themselves as members of more than one racial or ethnic group. As in the past, the Census Bureau says some people were missed, and others were counted twice. One of the greatest changes in the state was the population shift inland from California's increasingly expensive coastal regions. Placer County, in the Sierra Nevada foothills, drew escapees from Sacramento, workers in an emerging high-tech corridor, seekers of a more rural lifestyle and a burgeoning retiree community.
Orchards become shopping and retail centers, and alfalfa fields become subdivisions.