[MarkDaMan]

Thursday, March 19, 2009, 11:54am PDT | Modified: Thursday, March 19,
Oregon cities among fastest growing in nation
Portland Business Journal

The Bend area, the Portland-Beaverton-Vancouver area and the Salem area are among the fastest growing metropolitan areas, according to data released Thursday by the [CompanyWatch allows you to receive email alerts with stories related to your companies of interest. <p>You can watch up to ten companies at a time.</p>] U.S. Census.

Of the U.S. largest 100 metropolitan areas, Bend grew at a 3 percent rate from 2007 to 2008, increasing to 158,456 residents from 153,799, ranking No. 13.

Ranking No. 55, the Portland area grew at a 1.9 percent rate from 2007 to 2008, increasing to 2,207,462 residents from 2,166,491.

Ranking No. 66, the Salem area grew at a 1.7 percent rate from 2007 to 2008, increasing to 391,680 residents from 385,108.

Raleigh-Cary, N.C., was the nation’s fastest-growing city, growing at a 4.3 percent clip from 2007 to 2008, followed by Austin-Round Rock, Texas at 3.8 percent. Kennewick-Pasco-Richland at No. 3 was followed by Palm Coast, Fla., and Gainesville, Ga.

http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2009/03/16/daily42.html

[MarkDaMan]

Thursday, March 19, 2009, 10:13am PDT | Modified: Thursday, March 19, 2009, 2:35pm
Metro: Population may double by 2060
Portland Business Journal

In 50 years, the population in the Portland area will likely be between 3.61 and 4.38 million people. As of the 2000 Census, the region’s population was about 1.93 million.

The Metro Council on Thursday released updated forecasts that estimate a range of possible population and employment growth for the seven-county metropolitan region by the years 2030 and 2060. Metro’s projections indicate slower rates of growth in the short term due to current economic conditions with sustained population and employment growth over the long term.

The 20-year forecasts indicate that there is a 90 percent chance that the region’s population in 2030 will fall between 2.9 and 3.2 million people.

In May 2008, Metro projected a 90-percent likelihood that the population of the region would be between 3.46 and 4.25 million in 2060. That forecast also projected the total employment of the region to be between 1.7 and 3.3 million in 2060. No projections for 2030 were included in last May’s forecast.

Metro will use the information to determine future urban growth boundary expansion.

The forecasts encompass the seven-county Portland-Beaverton-Vancouver Primary Metropolitan Statistical Area as defined by the federal Office of Management and Budget. That area includes all of Multnomah, Clackamas, Washington, Yamhill and Columbia counties in Oregon and Clark and Skamania counties in Washington.

http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2009/03/16/daily39.html?ana=e_du_pub

[MR. Cosmopolitan]

Metro will use the information to determine future urban growth boundary expansion.

I hope they won't do that, Portland is already a very large city, I don't see any good in expanding the growth boundary except falling land prices, anyway I believe that by that time even the most conservative dinosaurs would refuse it, with the gas prices going up and the climate going crazy they'l probably think it twice before getting on their cars.

[edmontonenthusiast]

That's pretty good to hear! Hopefully it's more a sustainable boom (guess it is with stuff like the Pearl, SoWa, etc. happening) than a hyper suburban crazy boom.

[JordanL]

I hope they won't do that, Portland is already a very large city, I don't see any good in expanding the growth boundary except falling land prices, anyway I believe that by that time even the most conservative dinosaurs would refuse it, with the gas prices going up and the climate going crazy they'l probably think it twice before getting on their cars.

As someone who can't afford rent... falling land prices wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

[MR. Cosmopolitan]

As someone who can't afford rent... falling land prices wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

I dont understand how falling prices in the rich outer suburbs would affect the poor people living in the downtown and inner suburbs that fail to pay their rent.

[JordanL]

I dont understand how falling prices in the rich outer suburbs would affect the poor people living in the downtown and inner suburbs that fail to pay their rent.

Hey now, I said I couldn't afford to, I didn't say I'm failing to pay my rent. Lets not make this personal.

In Portland, poor people don't live in inner suburbs and downtown, because the housing there is WAY more expensive than the suburbs. It's WAY cheaper to live near Lombard or Parkrose, and even cheaper to live in Clackamas or Hillsboro.

[MR. Cosmopolitan]

Hey now, I said I couldn't afford to, I didn't say I'm failing to pay my rent. Lets not make this personal.

In Portland, poor people don't live in inner suburbs and downtown, because the housing there is WAY more expensive than the suburbs. It's WAY cheaper to live near Lombard or Parkrose, and even cheaper to live in Clackamas or Hillsboro.
don't forget trasport and time costs these are going to become surely a big isue in the future as well as land prices in the whole willamette valley, suburban living won't be so affordable in the future, fortunately Portland has already started to go the right way. By the way I wasn't that wrong Lloyd Albina and Hollywood are quite poor, for american standards at least.

[bvpcvm]

suburban living won't be so affordable in the future

i think on the contrary it'll be cheaper, relatively, anyway. there's already a premium being paid for living close to the center, where services and people are dense. as energy costs go up and the housing stock ages, the suburbs will look less and less attractive, and prices there will fall.

[JordanL]

don't forget trasport and time costs these are going to become surely a big isue in the future as well as land prices in the whole willamette valley, suburban living won't be so affordable in the future, fortunately Portland has already started to go the right way. By the way I wasn't that wrong Lloyd Albina and Hollywood are quite poor, for american standards at least.

This is how prices work... Supply vs. Demand

The supply of suburban housing is large and remains large, and will always be large. The demand may fluctuate.

The supply of urban living is by definition limitted, however the city is trying to raise demand, more than it already does naturally. (Not that this is necessarily a bad thing.)

Generally speaking, in a theoretical sense, the cost of living in the city and in a suburb should be the same, as the cost of moving further out would be offset by the maximum price the available market is willing to pay for housing.

This isn't how it actually works because of tastes, preferrences, over- and under-building, non-uniform access to infrastructure, etc.

But yes, you ARE wrong that the suburbs do and/or will cost more than the inner city. As people move further in, as you propose, this difference will be exacerbated, not alleviated. You have the supply demand curve backwards in your head.

[MR. Cosmopolitan]

i think on the contrary it'll be cheaper, relatively, anyway. there's already a premium being paid for living close to the center, where services and people are dense. as energy costs go up and the housing stock ages, the suburbs will look less and less attractive, and prices there will fall.

Yes I Know the prices of land won't change much for the suburbs in the future, what I mean is that all the extra cost of tiving in the suburbs, car, gas, time, polution... would increase a lot by that time making it more expensive and undesirable to live.

[MR. Cosmopolitan]

The supply of suburban housing is large and remains large, and will always be large.

If the supply of suburban housing is so large, why is still portland's area growing in surface.

Let me put this clear, the first objective of the urban growth boundary was to protect from urbanization all the land outside the boundary to proect and restore the downtown core and to settle an efficient mass transit system that would serve well all the area.

I'm not saying that we haven't gone in the right path to achieve this goals. But what i've seen is that this strategy allthought being quite succesfull in its purpose it has encountered quite a lot of problems that wasn't able to solve this policy that has created an icreasing minority of people that have started to questionate its future.

I would blame this to two factors, the first one is that Portland's policy towards urbanism has failed to change as much as Portland's area has changed making it unable to cope corectly whith the chalenges that the actual larger and denser Portland has encountered. The other factor is that most of Portlanders has remained nearly unchanged, meaning that many are following a very extremist interpretation of the "american dream" which actually is the "anywhere dream", don't think that your alone in this.

I know that bureaucracy is slow and its allways gonna be slow, but I do also know that a major public support can actually push it to incredible speeds, don't forget that a city does what its residents want to do. I hoped that the global chrisis and the environment would change people's minds, obiously I was mistaking. But there's one thing that I've got for sure and its that the expansion of the growth boundary will not solve the problem, it actually would make it worse.

ps. please don't think that life in dense urban areas is expensive, in dense urban areas. It looks expensive when you look at the sourface of it but when you actually see the expenses of the average resident in an averaged priced area of the city (please don't look at American cities) you would see that its actually cheaper than living in a sprawl city taking in account all the expenses.

Also changing mentality dosen't mean forgeting suburbs, they can be made more sustainable and more suited to higher densities without changing the costs of living and the way of life, look at Dutch suburbs to find an example.