Portland expected to grow by 125,000 peeps over next 23 years

[zilfondel]

Originally Posted by Drew-Ski

When I was living in Salinas in the early 2000's the ave occupancy rate per household unit was nearly 10 people. The cost of housing and demographics were the key reasons. Looking forward, when the ave. price for a home and cost of apartments in Portland rise high enough, communal living will become common like in California. I sometimes chuckle when see such low occpancy rate figures because I know down the road those figures will change, particurally when the emerging X, Y and soon Z generations, will have a tough time of buying starter home.

Agreed. I already live in a room I rent out of an old 1910 duplexified old Portland Foursquare; with a total of 8 people in it. Is quite efficient.

[PDXPaul]

Originally Posted by tworivers

Does anyone have any info about these population estimates in comparison to other cities?

I.E., if Portland is #30 now (or possibly higher if the Tribune's current pop. # is accurate), where will we be on that list in 2030? I'm assuming that some of those cities will be losing pop, while others may be growing at a slower pace.

We might move up some, but I think a lot of other cities are looking at growth in the future too.

[FireFighter74]

Does anyone think that Portland will ever surpass Seattle in population? Not talking about metro of course. Maybe 2030, 2040?

[brandonpdx]

It's certainly possible. with the actuals only being 20k different in population or something close to that. However, both cities are focusing on housing in the city so I imagine them to stay neck and neck for decades to come.

Another however, Portland has more sq miles to fill than Seattle, so if the greater east side of Portland really increases its Density you could see Portland get a more substantial lead.

[Drew-Ski]

Originally Posted by FireFighter74

Does anyone think that Portland will ever surpass Seattle in population? Not talking about metro of course. Maybe 2030, 2040?

There is currently a thread regarding this topic on the SSC.....Expect fireworks on this one!

[mhays]

It's easy to imagine Portland passing Seattle because you have so much more land and the numbers are already so close.

I don't remember any fireworks about that point in the other thread.

[Drew-Ski]

Originally Posted by mhays

It's easy to imagine Portland passing Seattle because you have so much more land and the numbers are already so close.

I don't remember any fireworks about that point in the other thread.

Most forumers were easygoing and enjoyed the conversation, but there were a few who veired off course........

[PDX City-State]

It's certainly possible. with the actuals only being 20k different in population or something close to that. However, both cities are focusing on housing in the city so I imagine them to stay neck and neck for decades to come

Even if Portland were to pass Seattle in population, which is very likely given PDX has a lot more room for infill and cheaper land, it wouldn't mean much. Seattle has nearly twice the density, which is a far better judge of a city's size than population itself. Portland will always be smaller than Seattle.

[zilfondel]

With our land area, if Portland had Seattle's density, our pop would be...

924,000

Ain't gonna happen, but I didn't realize that Portland had about 50 square miles of additional land area than Seattle!


edit - forgot that that included Forest Park, which is 7.7 miles^2. Whoops!
That just gives us an equivalent pop @ Seattle's density of 871,500