A quick quiz for all of you:
What is the most dense city in the Portland Metropolitan area?
Hint: It does not start with the letter “P”.
Answer below the fold.
A quick quiz for all of you:
What is the most dense city in the Portland Metropolitan area?
Hint: It does not start with the letter “P”.
Answer below the fold.
The densest city in the Portland Metropolitan area is Johnson City, Oregon, which has a population of 634 crammed into less than a tenth of a square mile–for an effective density of 11,062 persons per square mile.
OK, so that’s a trick answer… after all, Johnson City is little more than an incorporated trailer park, and one that doesn’t even have an official web presence. Excluding it, what’s next–surely Portland, right?
Nope. The most dense city in the metro area, besides Johnson City, is Beaverton–with a population of 86205, and an average density of 4665 persons per square mile. Portland has a population of 582130, and a density of 4288 persons/square mile. Several other metro area cities, all of ’em on the Oregon side of the river, also are more dense than Portland overall–King City (4652), Gladstone (4619), Maywood Park (4571), and Gresham (4505). Portland, as it turns out, is seventh.
If you add so-called “census dedicated places” to the mix–unincorporated communities which are defined and tracked by the US Bureau of the Census, and for which reliable figures are available, several of these are also denser than Portland. Aloha (5660 ppl/sq m) is even denser than Beaverton, as is the smaller Oak Hills area near Bethany (5865). Other CDPs with significant levels of density include Metzger, Jennings Lodge, and Oak Grove. The densest community north of the Columbia is Lake Shore, WA, at 4110 ppl/sq m.
Of course, it can easily be pointed out that this constitutes abuse of statistics, and I’ll agree: The City of Portland includes within its boundaries acres and acres of parkland, including Forest Park, as well as numerous large industrial areas unsuitable for residential use–and much of the city’s western parts are no denser than your average suburb. If we only consider the “core” of Portland–downtown, and those parts between the river and I-205, and Columbia Bvld to Johnson Creek–that area has a density that blows away Johnson City. The other communities named don’t have anything resembling the Pearl within their borders, after all.
But still, the tale told by the stats is interesting–even if the facts don’t reveal the truth.
The complete data, for all cities and CDPs within the metro area. Reliable stats are not available for Damascus, due to its recent incorporation. Density is given first, and then population. All figures taken from Wikipedia; and may reflect different sources; none is older than the 2000 census.
Aloha (CDP) 5660 41741
Banks 3886 1435
Barberton, WA (CDP) 1072 4617
Battle Ground, WA 2553 16812
Beaverton 4665 86205
Brush Prairie, WA (CDP) 305 2384
Camas, WA 1149 17950
Canby 3390 15140
Cedar Hills (CDP) 3881 8949
Cedar Mill (CDP) 3388 12597
Cornelius 1585 10895
Damascus 600 9985
Durham 3144 1395
Fairview 2631 9695
Felida, WA (CDP) 1968 5683
Five Cornders, WA (CDP) 1978 12207
Forest Grove 3850 20775
Garden Home (CDP) 3657 6931
Gladstone 4619 12200
Gresham 4505 101221
Happy Valley 1674 4519
Hazel Dell N, WA (CDP) 3469 9261
Hazel Dell S, WA (CDP) 3053 6605
Hillsboro 3254 90380
Jennings Lodge (CDP)4638 7036
Johnson City 11062 634
King City 4652 2750
La Center, WA 1884 2545
Lake Oswego 3409 36073
Lake Shore, WA (CDP) 4110 6770
Maywood Park 4571 777
Metzger (CDP) 4556 3354
Mill Plain, WA (CDP) 1237 7400
Milwaukie 4256 20835
Minnehaha, WA (CDP) 3464 7689
North Plains 2045 1605
Oak Grove (CDP) 4380 12808
Oak Hills (CDP) 5865 9050
Oatfield (CDP) 3608 15750
Orchards, WA (CDP) 2601 17852
Oregon City 3164 31826
Portland 4288 582130
Raleigh Hills (CDP) 3830 5865
Rock Creek (CDP) 4690 9404
Ridgfield, WA 421 4314
Rivergrove 695 324
Salmon Creek, WA (CDP) 2674 16767
Sandy 2045 7070
Sherwood 3931 16115
Sunnyside (CDP) 2621 6791
Tigard 3795 47460
Troutdale 2671 15465
Tualatin 2929 25650
Vancouver, WA 3659 165809
Walnut Grove, WA (CDP) 1891 7164
Washougal, WA 1734 13509
West Linn 3014 24180
West Slope (CDP) 3727 6442
Westhaven/Sylvan (CDP) 2674 7147
Wilsonville 2085 13991
Wood Village 3004 2680
5 responses to “Quick Density Quiz”
I thought it might be Johnson City, given the lack of commercial or industrial uses and other things you mention. Overall, I think that residential density might not be a great comparison factor given the wide range of possible land uses.
Agreed…. though if you want to know how suitable an area is for quality transit–density is probably one of the best indicators you can find.
The reason JC is an outlier is not because it doesn’t have non-residential uses diluting its stats–the bigger reason is that it’s so small.
I’ve always wondered why job density does not factor much towards transit planning. I feel it gets very little discussion compared to residential density talks.
I think if you talked to the service planners at TriMet you’d find they take job density very seriously.
I figured it was Beaverton. But then, I think I read about Beaverton’s density sometime in the recent past.
I think your point about Forest Park was right: density calculations for a city should exclude bodies of water and undeveloped open space (as contrasted to developed open space, like a neighborhood park filled with paved pathways, picnic areas, playgrounds, sports fields and so forth). An apples-to-apples comparison might lead to more accurate density figures.