Bend, other C.O. cities register more growth

Bend’s population grew by 3.4 percent in the year ended last July 1 to an estimated total of 84,080 residents, the U.S. Census Bureau said in figures released Thursday.

So the city added 2,812 residents in the previous 12 months.

Maybe.

Another group of number-crunchers still have the city below 80,000 residents, at the same point in time – and that’s what can happen with estimates.

Portland State University’s Population Research Center said late last year that Bend’s July 1 population was 79,985 – a difference of nearly 4,100 people, or 5.1 percent, said city Senior Planner Damian Syrnyk.

Syrnyk explained that PSU has widened its data sources for estimating population changes to include asking cities for how many building permits for new housing and other numbers. The Census Bureau relies on other records for its estimates, but he added, “I don’t have a good explanation for the large difference between the estimates.”

So instead, he looks at them as “bookend estimates,” that the city’s population was somewhere between 80,000 and 84,000 as of last July.

The numbers are not just about bragging rights (or worries about growth), as each set of numbers helps determine how state and federal dollars are distributed, such as gas tax revenues, grant funds and other things allocated on a per-capita basis.

But the farther one gets from the once-a-decade actual Census head-count, the more different sets of data can render different figures.

Syrnyk notes that the Census Bureau estimates that Bend has grown by 7,397 residents since the 2010 Census, but PSU estimates that four-year-plus increase at only 3,245 residents – about half what the feds have calculated.

As for other cities in the region, the Census Bureau said Redmond added 529 residents last year for a population of 27,941, up 1.9 percent (PSU only estimated a 26,770 population for the city).

The Sisters population estimate was 2,224, a rise of 46 residents, while La Pine added 31 residents to total 1,742.

Elsewhere, Madras was estimated to add 112 residents, for a total of 6,533, while Prineville’s estimate of 9,258 residents was a 68-person increase. Metolius added 13 people, to total 723, and Culver had 1,392 residents, up 21 from a year earlier, according to the Census Bureau.