Bend closes in on 100,000 residents as 2020 Census nears
The city of Bend grew by nearly 3.2 percent, or 2,740 people last year to reach an estimated population of 97,590 residents, the fastest but by no means the only growing city on the High Desert, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released Wednesday night.
The new Bend figure also is nearly 8,100 residents higher than the 89,505 population estimate for the same point in time – July 1, 2018 – released last fall by the Portland State University Population Research Center.
The two organizations use different sets of data, and their estimates tend to differ more in each succeeding year from the official once-a-decade U.S. Census head count – the next being less than a year away, on April 1, 2020.
Despite that large difference in Bend population estimates, the two are actually close in terms of how much growth they estimated over the past year, with PSU actually estimating a larger addition, of 3,070 people, Bend Senior Planner Damian Syrnyk noted. The two estimates also were close in terms of percentage of growth in Bend, both at just over 3 percent, he added.
Bend’s own forecast for last year’s population total, developed years earlier, was close to the Census Bureau’s, at nearly 97,000 people.
If Bend were to add another 2,740 residents in the current year ending July 1, the city would top the 100,000 mark before the 2020 Census takes place. By comparison, the Census Bureau counted 76,639 Bend residents on April 1, 2010.
The new estimates show Redmond grew at a similar rate as Bend last year, about 3 percent, or 921 residents, to break through the 30,000 milestone, with an estimated population of 30,914 people as of last July 1. Sisters grew by 1.8 percent, to 2,747 residents, while La Pine saw its population rise 1.9 percent, to 1,900.
Elsewhere on the High Desert, the Census Bureau said Prineville added 283 residents, up 2.8 percent, to reach an estimated population of 10,329. Madras saw 128 more residents, a 1.9 percent increase to a total of 6,944. Culver added 76 residents, to reach 1,580 in population, while Metolius grew by 14 people to a total of 787 residents.
