Population Change and Equity in the Pacific Northwest: Causes, Consequences, Responses

The Pacific Northwest is home to several of the fastest growing non-metropolitan communities in the US, as well as remote rural communities experiencing the more typical pattern of decline. Young people leaving rural... [ view full abstract ]

The Pacific Northwest is home to several of the fastest growing non-metropolitan communities in the US, as well as remote rural communities experiencing the more typical pattern of decline. Young people leaving rural communities join movers from across the US in flocking to the region’s popular cities. In Oregon, population growth in municipalities is constrained to state-legislated growth boundaries, introducing both the need for deliberative and innovative planning, and intensely concentrated zones of gentrification. Portland in particular offers an excellent case study of this confluence, as it has experienced population growth among workers, retirees, lifestyle migrants, and out-migrants from more expensive West Coast cities. The resulting real estate market has attracted speculative investors from afar, further accelerating housing cost increases, displacing thousands of poor households, and triggering dramatic increases in homeless populations. Regionally, rural and urban communities alike are confronting a crisis in affordable housing, prompting public outcry and putting several unprecedented policy remedies on the table for consideration.

The Population RIG hopes to capitalize on the richness of Portland’s local demography by convening one or more organized sessions of regional scholars and practitioners. This session (or sessions) engage this year’s theme by considering population science not simply as a means of producing reports and forecasts of population change, but also as an enterprise that can critically examine how those products are utilized. Specifically, we plan to invite guests who will speak to the potential for demographic projections to actually drive population trends, and to the observed or potential utility of using population research to ameliorate social inequity.