Greater Des Moines will have 750,000 residents by 2050, and the population will be older and more diverse, the Des Moines Area Metropolitan Planning Organization reported.

Workers will hold jobs in expanding industry sectors, with some living in new urban and suburban developments, the Forecasting Our Growth report found.

The report is a local analysis of population and jobs data from Regional Economic Model Inc., which forecasts trends at the county level. The report refines the projections to forecast where the population and jobs growth will occur within the area’s 18 cities. The resulting maps show what the metropolitan area could look like in 2050.

Among the findings:

• The metro population will grow an estimated 56 percent, to 750,000 in 2050 from 480,000 in 2010.
• Employment will jump 40 percent, to 481,000 jobs in 2050 from 338,000 in 2010.
• The fastest-growing industry sectors include natural resources and construction, as well as education and health services.
• The fastest-growing age bracket will be 65 and older, a group expected to increase to 21 percent of the population in 2050, up from 11 percent.
• Nearly a third of the population, 31 percent, will be nonwhite by 2050, up from 16 percent in 2010.  Latinos will represent the fastest-growing group.

To develop the report, the MPO assumed a growth pattern based in part on cities’ comprehensive plans and The Tomorrow Plan.