Census paints a moving portrait of region’s cities

If Coeur d’Alene’s sidewalks, shops and streets feel a little congested during the day – like maybe more than the city’s official populace of 35,000 is scurrying about – it isn’t an illusion.

Commuters heading into town for work increase the city’s daytime population by 20 percent, according to U.S. Census estimates. The net gain of population during the 9-to-5 period is a distinction Coeur d’Alene shares with the cities of Spokane, Sandpoint, Cheney and Colville.

In the bedroom communities of Hayden and Post Falls, meanwhile, the population dwindles during the day.

This is the first year that Census Bureau statisticians calculated daytime versus resident population. Though the numbers are somewhat dated – the recently released estimates are for 2000 – they give a snapshot of how people move through the region during a 24-hour period, said Derek Santos, an economist with Idaho’s Division of Financial Management.

The numbers will be valuable to traffic planners, Santos said. Cities could also use the figures to calculate if the need for police services increases during the day, or for disaster preparedness, according to the Census Bureau.

Daytime population includes commuters and other non-residents heading into a community for shopping, school, doctor’s appointments or other activities. Resident population counts people present in the community during the evening and nighttime hours.

Fairchild Air Force Base, though not a city, records one of the region’s biggest percentage population swings during the day. The number of people on base increases by nearly 50 percent during work hours.

Traffic congestion during morning and evening rush hours prompted the base to reconfigure the main security gate last summer, said 1st Lt. Ethan Stoker, public affairs officer. Now, two lanes each head in and out of Fairchild, which has helped eliminate the bottleneck, he said.

The city of Colville experiences an even larger percentage population flux. The town in northeastern Washington grows by nearly 60 percent each day, boosting the population by 3,000 people.

The figures don’t surprise Colville Mayor Dick Nichols. He’s an assistant manager at Wal-Mart, which draws customers from as far away as Republic, Wash., and southern British Columbia.

Colville is a regional trade center for the thinly populated northeastern corner of the state, providing employment, shopping and other services for the region, Nichols said.

“When we look at our usage figures for city programs – parks and recreation, the swimming pool, library and interaction with police – we run very close to a ratio of 40 percent city residents and 60 percent county residents,” he said.

Jeni Forman counts herself among the commuters. Every morning, she drives 10 miles into Colville to her job as executive director of the Tri County Economic Development District. Six of the district’s eight employees live outside of the city limits.

Most of Steven County’s 40,000 residents prize their rural lifestyle, she said.

“We like having the quality of life to raise our kids, plus some open space, and room for horses,” Forman said.