NumbersUSA Study: Population Growth and Sprawl in Oregon
Thu, Feb 6th 2020 @ 10:18 pm EST by Eric Ruark
NumbersUSA has released our latest sprawl study, this one for the state of Oregon.
Like previous reports, it measures the extent of sprawl using data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Natural Resources Conservation Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
What we found was that between 1982 and 2015, Oregon lost 419,000 acres (656 square miles) of open space as the state’s population grew by 1.3 million.
Oregon has been one of the fastest-growing states over the last three decades. Much of that growth has been in the Portland metropolitan area, with the Eugene, Salem, Medford, and Bend areas experiencing significant increases in population, too.
Oregon has also been one of the leaders in anti-sprawl efforts, limiting the amount of sprawl per person. However, population growth has caused sprawl to continue as Oregon officials have failed to accommodate its growth population within exiting urbanized area. On average, 0.311 acre of land was developed to accommodate each new resident during the 33-year period covered in the study.
https://www.numbersusa.com/blog/numbersusa-study-population-growth-and-sprawl-oregon
