Washington State: Population Stats & Figures

[RMacherat]

Powers-that-be were warned 30-40 years ago against allowing the Los Angelization of Seattle, but we went right ahead and did it. This left us with pseudotowns like SeaTac and Shoreline and the semilawless county enclaves mentioned previously. It also hemmed in Seattle forever. Furthermore, we will grow, but it will be by onesies and twosies in apartments, not by families in new subdivisions.

Fortunately, metropolitan area factoids are the only ones which really matter in assessing facts and bragging rights of cities. Otherwise, Seattle would run the risk of sliding into demographic oblivion as we are quickly passed by Denver, Louisville, Las Vegas, Nashville, Oklahoma City, Portland, Tucson, Albuquerque, Tucson, Mesa and yes, even Fresno. Sorry, even Fresno.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by SteveM

Does the census data include housing type? It would be interesting to know whether, in general, people in the region increasingly live in single-family or multi-family structures...

Yes it does, at least by general category. Multifamily in Seattle is now substantially more units than single-family.

One trend we should see more of is more families living in multifamily. Just like other cities. This is a healthy trend.

[RMacherat]

Indeed, much healthier to have families living in multifamily units instead of houses. Much greener too. Well, not green like lawn-green or outdoors green, more like not wasting anything-green.

[mhays]

My family didn't have a SFR until I was 8. By living in denser areas, I could always walk to school, was always around diversity, could always take the bus easily, etc. We didn't have a car at all until my dad got a ranger job when I was 5 or 6. The key is living in a neighborhood that has these things.

[Ginkgo]

Originally Posted by RMacherat

Fortunately, metropolitan area factoids are the only ones which really matter in assessing facts and bragging rights of cities. Otherwise, Seattle would run the risk of sliding into demographic oblivion as we are quickly passed by Denver, Louisville, Las Vegas, Nashville, Oklahoma City, Portland, Tucson, Albuquerque, Tucson, Mesa and yes, even Fresno. Sorry, even Fresno.

Correct. I remember years ago when Indianapolis and Jacksonville both more or less merged with most of their county (Marion and Duval) and in one fell swoop were catapulted into "large" cities--all due only to annexing what I assume were unincorporated county suburbs. Not too much left for Seattle to annex--I guess the White Center situation has not been resolved. And what with some eastern cities having very small inner city populations, it really is the metro areas which are the important statistic. Quiz: What major US city had fewer residents in 2000 than in 1900?

[bgwah]

St. Louis obviously!

[jessejb]

Covington?!

[just4ivaylo]

You can take away 3 from the Bellevue population after 5:00 AM on Wednesday...I'm moving to Houston.

Cool thread though!

[USAPatriot]

Washington State 2009 Population Forecast
Year of Big changes and Progress

June 30, 2009 1:00 PST
By AJAY MATHISON / AJM STUDIOS Staff Writer
Original AJM STUDIOS.NET Northwest Development News Center

image hosted on flickr

(Seattle hit the 600,000 mark.)

LYNNWOOD- The 2009 population estimates from the Office of Financial Management has been released. As usual, the OFM provide a good array of statistical data for statistics lovers. The 2009 population stats provided some big milestones for towns across the state of Washington.

The counties with the biggest population gains were King, Snohomish, Clark, Franklin, and Benton. For the first time in Seattle's history, the city hit a milestone of 600,000 people. The final number being in the city proper now rising at 602,000 residents.

Battle for second largest city in the state of Washington has always been hotly contested between Spokane and Tacoma. In 2008, Spokane had 1,700 more people then Tacoma, and now gained that number to 2,100 people over Tacoma. Since the 1990's, it has been a close battle between the two cities.

Vancouver grew still, even with the economic downturn. Vancouver grew to 164,500 people while Bellevue hit the 120,000 mark, over 1,000 new citizens in the city since the previous year.

Spokane Valley grew since it's incorporation since 2003 to a stunning 89,440 people. Federal Way had little change. For the first time in nearly a decade, Yakima experienced very little growth, and now has 84,850 citizens.

A big mover was the city of Auburn which was placed at 17th in the state for largest city, but jumped to 13th after recent annexations and growth. Auburn now has 67.485 citizens, trying to catch up to neighboring city Kent, which has over 88,000 people.

Up north in Bellingham, the city slowly climbed to 76,130 citizens.

The Tri-Cities continued to grow at a fast rate. Pasco now as 54,490 people, Kennewick has 67,180, and Richland grew to 47,010 people.

The states smallest town is still Krupp, which now only has 60 people.

Nearly every city in the state of Washington saw growth from both the previous year and since the 2000 census. A few cities did not, but there number were limited. It is expected that the populations will continue to grow in the state of Washington. The state's average growth was 1.2%, which is slow then the 2006 rate of 1.9%, but still a good healthy clip for smart growth.

[mhays]

Some errors of terminology in that article.

Growth does not equal "new people." Rather it's net difference. Since some people leave or die, the number of new people is always larger than net growth.

Also, these estimates are not present tense. They're past tense estimates of 4/1/09.

[CrazyAboutCities]

Fewer people moving to Washington state

Washington state’s population growth has slowed substantially, largely because fewer people are moving to the state. The weak economy gets much of the blame.

A new report by the state Office of Financial Management estimates that Washington’s population will increase about 26,000 this year because of migration. By comparison, migration added about 39,000 to the state’s population in 2009 and 81,000 in 2006. That turned out to be the peak year for the decade.

Fewer people are moving to Washington from other states because the recession and collapsed housing prices are keeping many Americans in place, according to the report.

We’re also seeing fewer people moving to Washington from other countries, a trend that emerged in the latter part of the decade.

One demographic hot button for many Washingtonians is how many Californians are moving to the Evergreen state. If Californians make you uneasy, you’ll be happy to know that the number of in-movers from California declined about 10 percent this year to 23,700.

By the way, Washington’s official population is now 6.7 million.


Read more: Fewer people moving to Washington state | Puget Sound Business Journal

http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/m...ton-state.html

[Ginkgo]

I hope we are still on track to getting that tenth congressional district. It has been a long time coming.

[cpm_seattle]

I have been curious how Portland added 200,000 to the city proper in roughly 30 years (1980 to 2007) whereas Seattle added only 100,000. A lot of that has come through Portland's annexation. Seattle's city limits have been static since the mid-1950's whereas Portland has annexed quite a bit of territory since 1960 (north, east and southwest).

Portland's land area: 134 square miles.
Seattle's land area: 84 square miles.

Portland Annexation map...

http://www.portlandonline.com/bps/in...=30426&a=51673

[mhays]

That's an interesting map!

I'm not terribly in favor of annexations for Seattle. The distant neighborhoods tend to consider themselves less part of the whole, and often vote against issues of citywide benefit. New annexations would presumably be worse.

[alexjonlin]

I do think it would make sense to annex White Center, though. It's functionally a Seattle neighborhood in a lot of ways already, and would really take a big load off of King County, which isn't meant to provide services for urban neighborhoods. And, White Center coudl get some good densification.

[bgwah]

Originally Posted by Ginkgo

I hope we are still on track to getting that tenth congressional district. It has been a long time coming.

I will officially consider Washington a "big" state if we get into the double digits for congressional districts!

[CrazyAboutCities]

Seattle is U.S.’s 23rd-largest city

As of Nov. 22, the city of Seattle had 629,825 people, making it the 23rd-largest city in the U.S. in terms of population.

And the city’s population is growing.

According to research by American City Business Journals and Buffalo, N.Y. Business First, Seattle’s population has grown from 616,627 in July 2009 and from 564,092 in July 2000. Seattle’s population is expected to reach 630,000 people on Nov. 26, according to the research.

Here are Washington state’s 10 most-populous cities, (national population rank in parentheses) according to researchers:

23. Seattle 629,875.

104. Spokane 204,757.

109. Tacoma 201,326.

144. Vancouver 169,082.

190. Bellevue 129,775.

284. Everett 100,053.

333. Spokane Valley 89,062.

342. Yakima 86,792.

345. Kent 86,490.

346. Federal Way 86,418.


Read more: Seattle is U.S.’s 23rd-largest city | Puget Sound Business Journal
http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/n...gest-city.html

[bgwah]

Hmm, that's quite a bit bigger than most other predictions...

[Capitol Hill]

Originally Posted by alexjonlin

I do think it would make sense to annex White Center, though. It's functionally a Seattle neighborhood in a lot of ways already, and would really take a big load off of King County, which isn't meant to provide services for urban neighborhoods. And, White Center coudl get some good densification.

Yes, but then you saddle the City of Seattle which isn't flush with cash to provide the services to the residents of White Center. The cost of annexation is greater than the tax revenue generated. Until it is revenue neutral, I must say that I'm against it.

[jessejb]

Originally Posted by bgwah

Hmm, that's quite a bit bigger than most other predictions...

Pretty good for a city that doesnt add people by constant sprawl-annexation like certain Sun Belt cities I know.