Editor’s Note: While driving into Lancaster, Pa. on Saturday, where I was to attend a meeting of website users and developers, I marveled at the beauty of the individual farms bisected by Route 30 and I wondered how the Amish continue to live here with the chock a block proliferation of motels, hotels, furniture outlets, and fast-food restaurants. Later, during a break, I picked up a copy of the local newspaper and read the story below. While some Amish farmers have picked up and headed to more rural areas, the overall population of Amish families is far outpacing the population growth of the merchant class. If the Amish ever drop their aversion to politics, they likely could stop additional development in its tracks. At the voting booth. _____________________________________________________________________
JEFF HAWKES reports for LancasterOnline Apr 26, 2019
Lancaster County’s fast-growing Amish population recently exceeded the 33,000 mark as the farming-oriented Plain sect continues to flourish despite the encroachment of urban sprawl.
The Amish, who typically have large families and drive horse-drawn vehicles and farm equipment, are growing so strongly that they accounted for an estimated 41% of the county’s overall population growth last year.
The U.S. Census Bureau says the county added 2,503 people in 2018. Scholars who track the local Plain community say about 1,020 of them were Amish.
Lancaster County’s ability to accommodate the burgeoning Amish population has become an issue in Manheim Township, where the commissioners will soon decide whether to allow the development of a 75-acre housing and commercial project, called Oregon Village, in the midst of a thriving, centuries-old Amish community.
Amish may leave Manheim Township if proposed Oregon Village development worsens traffic, expert says
Lancaster County’s Amish population reached 33,143 in 2018, up 3.2%, from the previous year, according to Elizabethtown College researchers. Last year’s growth was typical of what’s happened in recent years.
Elizabethtown College’s Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies bases its estimates for the Lancaster County settlement on a church district directory and Amish newspapers. (Lancaster County Amish comprise 87% of the entire Lancaster County settlement, which includes parts of neighboring Chester and York counties.)
Since 2014, Lancaster County Amish have grown annually by over 1,000 a year, on average, and at a 3.9% rate. That compares to a much slower 0.5% rate for the county as a whole. Overall, the county is growing by about 2,500 people a year.
Although some Amish families do leave Lancaster County, their population here doubles about every 20 years. In 1970, the Lancaster County portion of the local Amish settlement numbered about 7,000. That climbed to about 12,400 by 1990 and 16,900 by 2000. It has just about doubled since then.
