Downtown Grand Rapids Inc. Planning Manager Tim Kelly emails a weekly GR Forward update to the project Steering Committee. Here's this week's communication:

Good Morning Everyone:

I hope you are all finishing up another great week.

On the heels of our Steering Committee meetings last week, work continues to progress on development of the draft plan, which will be available for review in the coming weeks. In the meantime, we are continuing to get the word out in the community about GR Forward. This week we gave presentations to the groups listed below, and next week we are looking forward to partnering with the Chamber of Commerce to present to their Emerging Leadership program. Again, if anyone knows of a group or organization that would be interested in having a presentation, please let me know.

  • Grand Action Executive Committee
  • Planning Commission

Web Numbers

The latest web and social media numbers are below. Things have slowed a bit since our last public forum, so be sure to continue to share the links below in your network so everyone can stay up to date with GR Forward activities.

Resources

Last week the Census Bureau released new population estimates, showing where cities stand in attracting and retaining residents.

The numbers, which are current as of July 2014, cover all cities, towns and other subcounty jurisdictions. Some of the interesting trends to note include:

  • Population growth picked up in several of the nation’s largest cities, including many that did not fare well over the past decade. Dallas’ population, for example, has grown 6.7 percent since 2010 after changing little from 2000 – 2010. Other major cities, like Chicago and Baltimore, saw their populations stabilize after years of population decline.
  • For the third straight year, San Marcos, TX experienced the fastest population growth of any city, up 7.9 percent over a 12-month period. Just behind San Marcos was Georgetown, TX, another city in the vicinity of Austin, which is also experiencing growth. On the whole, Texas has five of the top ten fastest-growing cities with at least 50,000 residents. Unsurprisingly, New York City added the most total people, with 53,000 new residents moving there over the previous year.
  • Keeping with previous trends, the vast majority of the fastest-growing cities are found in the warm climates of the Southwest and West, particularly in Arizona, Florida and Texas. In contrast, cities in the Midwest and Northeast generally experienced little or no growth, with the exception of a few cities like Fishers, IN, and West Des Moines, IA, which saw population increases of roughly 11 percent from 2010.

For those that are interested, I have included the numbers for Grand Rapids below. For reference, in 2000 the City’s population was 197,800, and in 2010 it was 188,040. While the City’s growth has been modest since 2010, it is a good sign that the growth rate is positive, and moving us closer to the levels we experienced in 2000.

  • 2013-2014 % Change: 0.7
  • July 2011 Estimate: 189,054
  • July 2012 Estimate: 190,535
  • July 2013 Estimate: 192,459
  • July 2014 Estimate: 193,792

As always, let me know if you have any questions. Otherwise, enjoy your weekend!