Proposed tighter metro area requirements could affect Bend-Redmond area

'Core city' (Bend) would need 100,000 residents to remain a metro area

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- A federal review body has proposed an update to the population requirements that cities need to meet in order to qualify as a metropolitan area, and the change could affect the Bend-Redmond area.

There would need to be a population of 100,000 or more in the core city in order to be considered a metropolitan area. That's double the current 50,000-resident requirement that has been in place for the past 70 years.

Under the proposal by the Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Area Standards Review Committee, metro areas that don't meet the new proposed standard -- which could be as many as 144 nationwide -- would be reclassified as micropolitan areas. 

As of July 2019, Bend’s estimated population, according to the Census Bureau, was 100,421 residents, barely making the mark on the newly needed population count.

But Portland State University last fall estimated Bend's July 1, 2020 population as only 92,840 residents, so the once-a-decade head count is crucial.

Data from the 2020 Census will be used to determine whether the Bend-Redmond area, defined by the Census Bureau as all of Deschutes County, and all of those others across the nation will remain metropolitan areas.

If the 100,000 criteria is not met, they would be reclassified as a micropolitan area.

The change could have a potential affect on federal funding that the city receives.

But Lynne McConnell, the city of Bend's affordable housing manager, said Monday that funds for housing programs in the area would be grandfathered in.

"Thankfully, our local HUD (Housing and Urban Development) office, which is the department that manages these funds on behalf of the federal government, has assured us that there wont be any changes to our status, so those funds will continue to flow to Bend," McConnell said.

Damon Runberg, the regional economist for the Oregon Employment Department, says one of the biggest benefits of being classified as a metropolitan area is having access to added data.

"We have significantly more information that we know about Deschutes County then, say, someplace like Crook County next door, because Deschutes County is the Bend-Redmond Statistical Area," Runberg said.

He also said the data helps him and other planners and analysts have a better understanding of the area and its economy.

Although Census numbers for the 2020 decennial count have not been released, Runberg says Bend has had some population growth since then.

"I'm fairly confident that whatever the decennial census number is, it's going to be over 100,000," Runberg said.

If the proposed changes are approved, re-evaluations for cities would be done every five years.