More Cities Get Piece of Slightly Slower Population Growth

While Idaho’s population grew at a slightly slower pace in 2007 and the bulk of the newcomers continued settling in the state’s major metropolitan areas, more cities outside the urban centers felt some of the latest influx, the Idaho Department of Labor said in a release. U.S. Census Bureau estimates released July 10 show that of the 35,500 new people in Idaho in 2007, 60 percent, or 21,500, settled in the 14 cities that each gained at least 500 new residents between July 1, 2006, and July 1, 2007. Seven including Boise were in the Boise metro area. Six others were in the Twin Falls, Idaho Falls, Coeur d’Alene and Pocatello areas and the last was Rexburg, which experiences significant population increases as Brigham Young University-Idaho continues to grow, state labor officials said.

At the same time, 138 cities essentially saw no population growth in 2007 – the Census Bureau estimated gains of no more than nine and losses of no more than 37. They were the rural communities that dot Idaho. Only 15 of those cities had populations of over 2,000. The largest was Weiser at 5,330.

In 2006, when statewide population growth was a little stronger, 24,300 of the 38,000 new residents across the state were counted in 13 cities. That was 64 percent of the growth. At the other end of the spectrum, 146 cities posted essentially no growth.

The combined population of Idaho’s 200 cities was 1,023,652 in mid-2007, 68.2 percent of the state’s total population. In 2000, the cities claimed 65.6 percent of total state population.

The Idaho Department of Labor said that as the state economy slows, Idaho’s population growth is also expected to slow - as it did in 2001, 2002 and 2003 when it fell to just 1.6 percent a year during and right after the national recession. It has been well over 2 percent a year since. During the recession and post-recession years, the population still gravitated to the urban areas, but it was not as concentrated as it has been since.

Star, population 4,754, the newest suburb in the Boise metro area, was the state’s fastest growing city in 2007, adding population at a 17.7 percent clip. The only other double-digit percentage increases in 2007 were posted by Notus, population 602, at 10.9 percent and Middleton, population 5,382, at 10.2 percent. Both are more rural communities in southwestern Idaho.

It was the second straight year that Star had the highest percentage growth. The western Ada County city posted a 43.9 percent increase in 2006. The other double-digit percentage increases in 2006 were 14.3 percent in Meridian, 12.9 percent in Kuna and 10.7 percent in Ammon, all suburbs of major urban centers.