Cerabino: Oh baby, no baby. But Florida's going to grow anyway

I’m trying to imagine what Florida would look like with an extra seven million people living here.

For starters, it may require another lane on Military Trail.

I’ve been studying the projections for Florida’s population published this week by Florida Trend, and if I had to summarize it in one sentence, I would say that the forecast calls for older people speaking more Spanish.

It turns out Florida’s doing a comparatively lousy job of producing Florida babies.

We get about 613 births a day here, which may sound like a lot, but it barely replaces the 557 daily deaths in the state, according to the figures. And the grim reaper is expected to gain ground on the stork in the upcoming years.

“By 2035, there will be more deaths than births in Florida, meaning all population growth will come from in-migration,” the report said.

We can accept this trend or do something about it, by perhaps establishing the Florida Department of Procreation, which would be led by somebody called “the sex czar” and headquartered in the Florida city of Okahumpka.

This might also require a new state specialty license plate with the motto, “Just say ‘Yes!’”

I know what you’re thinking: Wait a second, Frank, if the death rate is going to pass the birth rate, how can we be heading toward a state of 27.4 million people in the next quarter century?

The answer is that we’re going to have far more people moving here than Floridians deciding to move away, according to the projections.

Right now, if you consider births, deaths, and people coming and going from other states and countries, Florida is adding 919 new residents a day.

That’s a net gain of 335,435 new Floridians every year. (If you think this number is impressive, imagine all the new iguanas Florida is adding every year.)

To put it another way, adding 335,435 new residents is the equivalent of adding all of people who live in West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Boynton Beach and Delray Beach – Palm Beach County’s four most populous cities – every year.

I know. Who wants more than one Boca Raton?

If you break the numbers down even more, you can see what’s driving this population growth. About 2,286 people a day move to Florida while an average of 1,423 move away.

That means we are netting more than 800 new people among the sizeable group of people who are crossing state lines or national borders to start new lives.

And that will create a demographic shift that shrinks the white non-Hispanic population in the state from 55 percent to 49.2 percent of the overall population, while Florida’s Hispanic population grows from 25.3 percent to 30.1 percent, the report predicts.

I’m a bit leery of these long-term projections. They don’t take into account a slew of variables that might dramatically affect these migration shifts.

For example, there’s no telling what sort of carnage Florida lawmakers will dream up with new gun laws. The legalization of bazookas for home protection could thin out North Florida dramatically.

And there’s no telling how deeply climate change will affect Florida’s coastline and water supply, or whether people will want to buy oceanfront property in Wellington.

There’s also the introduction of self-driving cars, which would have a dramatic impact on Florida’s death rate, not to mention the number of vehicles fished out of condo clubhouse swimming pools.

And it’s hard to imagine what immigration in America will look like after President Donald Trump’s fourth term in office.

Florida may grow as predicted, but then again, it’s Florida. Stuff’s going to happen, and if history is a guide, it won’t be as planned.