Recession slows migration from rural communities 

The national recession not only reduced migration to Idaho from other states and countries in 2008, but it slowed the exodus of people from Idaho’s rural communities, new U.S. Census Bureau estimates indicate.

Between mid-2007 and mid-2008, 69 of Idaho’s 200 cities either experienced no population growth or modest population losses.  According to agency analysts, the length and depth of the current recession that caused the Boise metropolitan area to lose 24,000 jobs during the past two years and the rest of the state to lose over 17,500 more has severely impeded the ability – and the rationale – for people to move, the Idaho Department of Labor said in a release.

The Census Bureau estimates that half of Idaho’s overall state population growth of 27,700 occurred in 12 cities with over 20,000 residents each. The other half came in small doses, with increases of anywhere from 1 to 300 people, in 117 cities, which also had to make up for the nearly 300 people lost by the 45 cities posting declines. Those losses were mostly in the single digits, with the largest loss occurring in Bonners Ferry.

The relative stability of the Idaho population in 2008 stood in stark contrast to the 2001 recessionary period when the movement from rural to urban Idaho continued unabated, possibly because the state’s economy navigated that recession without losing jobs like it has the last two years. Over 100 most rural cities either did not grow or lost population in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2006. The number of cities that experienced no growth slipped to 98 cities for 2004 and 97 cities in 2007.

The combined population of the 200 cities in mid-2008 was 1,041,000, up nearly 2 percent from 1,022,000 in 2007. That was 68.4 percent of the total statewide population.

The largest city remained Boise with a population of 205,300, up 1.3 percent, and the smallest was still Warm River in eastern Idaho, with a population of 10.

The fastest growing city in 2008 was the small western Idaho town of Cambridge, which expanded 7.3 percent to 380. The biggest percentage decline was 6.7 percent in Drummond in eastern Idaho, which dropped in population from 15 to 14.

Boise added the most people at nearly 2,600 while Bonners Ferry lost the most, but only 37.

City-by-city population changes from year to year are available.

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