South Florida lagged behind the state’s 17.6% overall growth rate between 2000 and 2010, with Miami-Dade and Broward counties’ combined population growing 9.5% to reach a total of 4.2 million residents.

Miami-Dade’s population grew by 10.8% to nearly 2.5 million people, much lower than its 18.4% growth in the 1990s. Broward grew by just 7.7% to 1.7 million, compared to a 24.6% increase in the 1990s. The growth was overwhelmingly influenced by an influx of minorities, as the population of non-Hispanic whites tumbled region-wide.

The slower rate of growth was no doubt steered by a housing market that boomed mightily during the first half of the decade before tailspinning sharply toward a bottom that has not yet been reached. There were more than 200,000 additional housing units created between 2000 and 2010, many of them condos built and bought by speculators.

The result: The number of vacant housing units surged by 52% during the decade, and there were a whopping 246,422 vacancies in South Florida in 2010. That total includes vacation homes or condos that were unoccupied when the census was taken.

There are too many new units being added into the supply, people walking away from their units or losing them to foreclosure, and a lack of normal household formation because of the economy.