The populations of Denver, Colorado, and Portland, Oregon, have grown very differently. The infographic below shows how population has grown in these cities and their suburbs from 1930-2000. Use the slider at the top to see population growth on each map, as well as charts showing how the suburbs have grown in relation to these cities.
Population Data Source: US Census Bureau
this is great
Its too bad that Vancouver, Washington isn’t included on the map. Just across the Columbia River from Portland, Vancouver has no urban growth boundary or long-term land use planning. A larger percentage of Vancouver citizens commute across the river and sprawl in Vancouver is out of control. Portland cannot do much about it, its another state, but its an interesting component of the Portland’s context and has a huge impact.
This cool looking, but it is also a bit misleading. These figures are skewed in several that make Portland appear less sprawling.
The authors of this graphic, in their intention to skew the figures towards Portland, missed out on the best way to make their point. They should have shown comparable areas that were tighter in. If they’d show only Denver’s vicinity ont he same scale as Portland’s (mostly Aurora, Westminster, and Arvada), they’d be more effective in making their point.
This is why I say that:
First, this shows only maybe 2/3rds of the area of the Portland urban area. This chart leaves out the parts of the area in Washington state. Vancouver, WA alone has a population of about 162k.
Second, these charts define the suburban areas in very different ways.
The Portland area seems to represent part of the urban area (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Urban_Areas_%26_Urban_Clusters).
The Denver area shows something more like a combined statistical area (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_United_States_Combined_Statistical_Areas).
Just to try to put the figures on a more even playing field, let’s assume for a minute that the Denver area is correctly categorized. (I think that it may not be, but let’s assume that it is.) Then the 2000 figures for Denver’s Combined Statistical Area are (588k in Denver; 2042k in rest of the CSA; 22% of the population of the CSA lives in Denver). For Portland’s Metropolitan statistical area (550k; 1377k; 29%).
That is not nearly so dramatic of a result, is it?
Basically, you have to fudge the groupings to include Fort Collins and Greeley as part of the area. It is pretty hard to come up with a census grouping that includes those towns as part of Denver. If you want as far from Portland as Fort Collins is, you’d have to include the Salem area.
Now maybe this is the point: the Denver “Front Range” area encompases several much farther away places (Boulder, Fort Collins, Colorado Springs) whereas Portland has fewer far flung towns that are part of its area. (In fact, Portland doesn’t have a defined combined statistical area at all.)
But these other Front Range cities are, in many ways, their own economic centers. Certainly, some folks from Loveland, Boulder, Greeley and Fort Collins commute to Denver. But I live in Boulder (full disclosure) and I go to Denver about only 12 times a year total, and 8 of those are to go to the airport. And I know a bunch of people in Longmont, Louisville, Superior, etc. that commute to Boulder, not to Denver. Fort Collins, too, has its own suburbs.
The data in the chart hints a bit at this. Consider that Fort Collins, Greeley, and Boulder were all bigger in 1930 than any of the near-Portland ‘burbs would be before 1970. These are not suburbs; these are all satellite college towns– semi-independent urban areas whose growth is aided both by the presence of a university (Colorado State Univ., Northern Colorado Univ., Univ. of Colorado) and by their proximity to a larger metropolitan area’s infrastructure.
It seems to me that the real things I’ve learned from this chart are:
– Portland’s suburbs have grown at a rate consistent with Denver’s. (Look at the shape of those charts)
– Aurora is a big city, in terms of population. And Westminster and Arvada have grown very fast, too.
I agree with Sandy, and would like to add:
I live in Louisville, a Denver/Boulder suburb. I say Denver/Boulder b/c people commute to both, and to the Denver burbs from Louisville. Louisville was a little city in its own right back in the 1880s. It was, in fact, a “streetcar suburb”, served by the Denver Interurban line, and also an old coal mining town, long before it became more of a suburb of those two ciites. There are many other Denver ‘burbs that have a similar history.
I’m not going to be quite as Scientific as Sandy, but she’s absolutely right. (as are the others). I lived in Colorado Springs for years and just moved to Portland a bit over a year ago. Was just curious about comparing Denver and Portland b/c their numbers are similar it seems.. so I found it quite wonderful to stumble upon this. But having been a resident of both areas, these maps are very misleading.
The area covered is not even comparable, which seems to be the point here. Consider that Ft. Collins up there takes about one hour to reach via I-70 from the opposite (south) side of Denver in GOOD traffic – that’s going 75 miles an hour the ENTIRE way. By comparison, If it were ever possible to go that speed from Hilsboro ACROSS all of Portland to Gresham, it would take 15 minutes. Sure it seems like longer cause 8 times out of ten you’ll be crawling through traffic at 15 mph for that entire strech.
I guess distance isn’t really the issue here. But comparing (and defining) suburban areas is. I would call everything on the Portland map a Portland suburb plus several others (see that blank space b/w Gresham and Oregon City? ALL thickly urban. Sprawl even. Clackamas, Happy Valley, there’s no empty space.
The Denver map is missing some suburbs too, but none further away than Arvada. Of those, only Arvada, Aurora, and Westminster I’d consider suburbs. Boulder is a streach for me, but I suppose the argument could be made. And the kind of empty area between Westminster and Greeley? Once you get past Longmont, It is pretty empty. That’s farmland. High Plains. Like rural Kansas.
So I guess I got sidetracked by the misleading maps. I like the concept, and enjoyed watching the cities grow (pretty similarly). But should be re-done with some alterations to make the data much less apples and oranges.