[09] Cities

For this section, I will include some quick points on cities in Oregon. I will focus mainly on Portland, which is Oregon's major metropolitan city.

Portland-Oregon is part of the group in the Northwest of unconnected, yet closesly spaced metropolitan districts that also include: Tacoma-Seattle-Bellingham (WA) and Vancouver (BC, Canada).

The Oregon portion of the metropolitan area is the state's largest urban center, with about 2 million people and about 550 to 600 sq. mi. of urbanized land area, and the state's hub for trade, transportation, and business. Most is under the jurisdiction of Metro, a directly-elected regional government which, among other things, is responsible for land use planning in the region.

According to the US Census stats of 2006, the Portland–Vancouver–Beaverton Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) ranks 23 of the 25 most populated areas in the US, with a population of 2,137,565 people. It consists of Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas, and parts of Columbia and Yamhill counties in Oregon, as well as Clark County, Washington and Skamania County, Washington. The area includes Portland and the neighboring cities of Beaverton, Gresham, Hillsboro, Milwaukie, Lake Oswego, Oregon City, Fairview, Wood Village, Troutdale, Tualatin and Tigard, as well as Vancouver, Washington.

Races in Portland:
White Non-Hispanic (75.5%)
Hispanic (6.8%)
Black (6.6%)
Two or more races (4.1%)
Other race (3.5%)
American Indian (2.3%)
Vietnamese (2.0%)
Chinese (1.4%)
Other Asian (1.3%)
Filipino (0.5%)
Japanese (0.5%)

(Total can be greater than 100% because Hispanics could be counted in other races)


Major Economic Trends Growing industries: hi-tech, metals, transport equipment, printing, retail and service sector Declining industries: lumber/wood, paper, food processing

Below I have included graphs regarding city demographics of Portland, OR.



The Portland-Salem CMSA 's population (Census 2006 est.) had increased since July 2000 because of net domestic migration (an annual average of about 11,975 more native-born residents arriving than leaving), natural change (an annual average of about 15,470 more births than deaths) and net international migration (about 12,860 more foreign-born residents arriving than leaving). Therefore, immigration was the second largest component of population increase, and it accounted directly for nearly one-third (32.9%) of the metro area’s increase over this period.





Sources
Census Bureau
City Data
FAIR: Metro Area Factsheet