Idaho Mountain Express: State’s population growth mainly in cities

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

State’s population growth mainly in cities

Blaine County numbers down since 2010

By EXPRESS STAFF

Idaho’s population growth continued to be concentrated in its cities during 2012, but that growth remained limited as the state economic recovery began to accelerate from a sluggish pace a year earlier, the Idaho Department of Labor reported last week.
   The U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday estimated that the combined population of Idaho’s 200 cities rose 1 percent from 2011 to 2012, the same increase recorded between 2010 and 2011. Eighty-eight cities lost population while 107 gained and five went unchanged. Communities that lost population were up by one from 2011, but were not all the same ones.
   Statewide, Idaho’s population was up 0.8 percent in 2012, unchanged from the increase in 2011 from 2010. That means rural population rose just 0.3 percent compared to an increase of 0.4 percent from 2010 to 2011.
   The total population of Idaho’s 200 cities was 1.1 million in 2012, or 69 percent of the state total. Rural Idaho’s population totaled 494,000. In 1990, only 59 percent of the population lived in incorporated cities.
   A third of the city population gain in 2012 came in Ada County, where the suburban community of Star posted a 3.4 percent increase. Coupled with population growth rates of 3.3 percent in Meridian and 2.9 percent in Eagle, those three cities accounted for nearly 3,400 of the 10,500-population increase posted by Idaho’s cities.
   Dubois in eastern Idaho recorded the largest population loss at 8.8 percent, dropping from 657 to 599. Salmon was the largest city to record a significant loss, falling 2.7 percent from 3,128 to 3,044.
   Only three of the 22 cities with more than 10,000 population posted losses: Rexburg, Mountain Home and Blackfoot.
   In Blaine County, small population gains were recorded in the cities of Hailey and Sun Valley in 2012, while Bellevue, Carey and Ketchum all posted slight losses. However, Hailey and Sun Valley numbers still show slight population decreases since 2010.

Populations of Blaine County cities
Bellevue: 2012: 2,281   2011: 2,289   2010: 2,318
Carey: 2012: 584                   2011: 594       2010: 602
Hailey: 2012: 7,920                2011: 7,875              2010: 7,935
Ketchum: 2012: 2,680   2011: 2,682   2010: 2,709
Sun Valley: 2012: 1,394   2011: 1,392   2010: 1,404

buy cialis
comprar cialis
acheter cialis

About Comments

Comments with content that seeks to incite or inflame may be removed.

Comments that are in ALL CAPS may be removed.

Comments that are off-topic or that include profanity or personal attacks, libelous or other inappropriate material may be removed from the site. Entries that are unsigned or contain signatures by someone other than the actual author may be removed. We will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or any other policies governing this site. Use of this system denotes full acceptance of these conditions. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.

The comments below are from the readers of mtexpress.com and in no way represent the views of Express Publishing, Inc.

You may flag individual comments. You may also report an inappropriate or offensive comment by clicking here.

Flagging Comments: Flagging a comment tells a site administrator that a comment is inappropriate. You can find the flag option by pointing the mouse over the comment and clicking the 'Flag' link.

Flagging a comment is only counted once per person, and you won't need to do it multiple times.

Proper Flagging Guidelines: Every site has a different commenting policy - be sure to review the policy for this site before flagging comments. In general these types of comments should be flagged: