Half of Georgians had moved within five years of 2000 Census

ATLANTA - George Lawrence thought the south Atlanta suburbs might insulate him from the traffic and hectic pace of Atlanta, but sprawl put an end to that. Fed up with the rat race, he moved to the next county where he now has room for three horses, a dog and a rooster. <br> <br> A job change by Susan Osborne&#39;s husband meant a daily round-trip commute of 130 miles. They trimmed his commuting distance to a fraction of that by moving from the south Atlanta suburbs to the north. <br> <br> Like the Lawrences and Osbornes, Georgia is a state on the move. New figures from the Census Bureau show that less than half of Georgians over the age five, 49.2 percent, lived in the same home or apartment in 2000 as they did in 1995, continuing a trend also seen in the 1990 Census. <br> <br> The data comes from Census 2000 demographic profile tables released today. The results are based on answers to the long-form Census questionnaire, given to about one-in-six households nationwide. <br> <br> Among the hundreds of new statistics are some that bring a sharper focus to the state&#39;s increasingly diverse population, largely pushed by a 300 percent increase in the state&#39;s Hispanic population from 1990 to 2000. <br> <br> The percentage of foreign-born Georgians rose to seven-point-one percent in 2000 from 2.7 percent in 1990. The percentage of the population over five speaking English-only declined to 90.1 percent from 95.2 percent in 1990. <br> <br> Among the 3.6 million Georgians relocating between 1995 and 2000, 1.6 million, or about 44 percent, merely changed addresses within the same county. The rest moved from another county in Georgia (just over 1 million, or about 29 percent) or from outside Georgia (965,558, or about 27 percent.) <br> <br> In the case of George Lawrence, a 40-year-old Atlanta native who owns a printing company near the airport, it was a search for a more laid-back lifestyle. <br> <br> Susan Osborne, who moved with her husband last July from Jonesboro south of Atlanta to Cumming on the north, says the relocation saved her husband hours of commuting a week. <br> <br> In addition, it put the former school paraprofessional closer to colleges where she can work on her degree and return to the classroom as a teacher.

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