I'm not so sure of your future figures, Jack. If they extend Max to the Idaho Border and south to California Border...Brings back memories of Kaiser Shipyards and the buses from the south.

That's it! We'll grow our way out of debt!!!

We'll grow our way out of debt!

When uncontrollable inflation hits, these debt numbers will look like chump change, and our city fathers like the geniuses they know they are.

With all the snow and ice lately, birth rates will spike upwards in about 9 months.

Relax, climate change will soon make Portland unlivable in the winter so despite the birth surge, the population will shrink as Portlanders head for Hawaii to survive.

When all those babies are born in September, Portland proper will actually lose population. There's not enough family housing here, so they will all move to the burbs.

Actually, the 2008 numbers from the Census Bureau are now out, too.

Bill says: Relax, climate change will soon make Portland unlivable in the winter ...

Wrong, Bill. Metro is working on plans to deal with the millions of climate refugees fleeing the heat of Arizona and California for oh-so temperate Oregon.

Metro is working on plans to deal with the millions of climate refugees fleeing the heat of Arizona and California for oh-so temperate Oregon.

i'd like to see those. can you point us to them?

It's funny how Salem and Eugene continue to be neck and neck.

Does anybody know if Metro is working on any plans to pick up the garbage this week?

Actually, the 2008 numbers from the Census Bureau are now out, too.

The statewide 2008 numbers are up -- 3,790,060 for Oregon, up from 3,735,549 -- but I don't believe the "subcounty" (city) 2008 Census numbers are available yet:

http://www.census.gov/popest/cities/files/SUB-EST2007-mtwy.csv

"Does anybody know if Metro is working on any plans to pick up the garbage this week?"

Do you really think that visionaries have time to think about garbage?

We have considered organizing a bucket brigade to pass garbage down to NW 23rd where it can be loaded on the streetcar and efficiently transported away from us. I'm sure they have garbage pick up at RiverPlace.

Frontier times call for frontier measures! Go by streetcar!

We could take all our garbage and dump it in the South Waterfront Neighborhood Park and call it the latest Art installation by the Artist in Residence. They probably wouldn't notice until after the thaw.

Interesting. I wonder what the demographics of the growing population are. Families? College educated? Students? High school grads? Home buyers or renters? Income level?

One article a while back suggested that many of the "new" Portlanders were of lower income levels, which will not bode well for the local economy, and could potentially ask more of state and county services than they contribute in tax dollars.

Hmmm, would be interesting to research this a little.

Don't worry about the trash. It should stay frozen for a while.

Sam the Tram must know what Livin' just found out - all these new folks are probably not going to be reliable tax payers, hence the reason to bust us in the chops NOW for all the purportedly "necessary" infrastructure to support "a million new residents" (Max bridges, street cars, free toilets, convention center hotel, etc.). I guess he has to act before reverse gentrification takes hold.

Funny, while he knows that the public would go crazy paying for something legit like paving the roads, he has no qualms blowing ten times the money on stuff that will benefit 1/10th the population.

Amen, bro.

Sam the Tram is definitely a hypocrite.

Yesterday at his media event he said that this snow event is costing the city $100 thousand a day and "seriously crimping the city's budget and we don't have that kind of money." But recently he offered Vestas Windmills $12.5 MILLION of city money to establish it's headquarter here, additionally offering other tax breaks, job education incentives, SoWhat TIF dollars, and the state's $30 Million to boot.

It odd how city dollars are found for everything imaginable outside of real tasks of the city (Charter required), but then cries poor for the real necessities. I'm sure Sam will use the snow as a major reason to reinstate his $450 Million road tax proposal.

You people are NOT listening!

"Blumenauer spoke to the Tribune after giving the keynote address at a conference sponsored by the Northwest Energy Coalition, a group of utility companies and advocacy groups working on alternative energy projects.

In his speech, Blumenauer predicted the population of the Portland area would grow by far more than the estimated 1 million people during the next decade because of “climate change refugees” fleeing areas made unlivable by global warming."

As a 3 year graduate student, I know where the majority of these permanent residents are coming from. Mainly Silent Generation and Baby Boomer retirees, many of whom are East Coast transplants.

Own some property in Boston, NYC, the San Francisco, sell onr off when you reach 60+, buy a condo in the Pearl, and have a bunch of family-bearing age PSU planners inputting your data in a file that becomes a 1.33% increase in the City of Portland.

This may be a cynical view, but it is the view when I ride PDX Streetcar around 1 pm anyday of the week where it is a freaking geriatric clinic up in there.

If you want to comment on spending priorities, check out this simplistic City of Portland poll:

http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/survey-intro.zgi?p=WEB228LQQ5DPZ2

Well, unless there is a huge amount of infill, or demolition of single-family homes and old apartment buildings, to then be replaced by big condo or apartment buildings, of course the population growth within the city of Portland is going to be small.

Metro is working on plans to deal with the millions of climate refugees fleeing the heat of Arizona and California for oh-so temperate Oregon.

I have no idea what Metro may be doing in this regard, but the fact is that the global climate models forecast more and more climatic extremes (both droughts and years with unusually heavy precipitation) in many regions, including ours. The forecasts also include changes in seasonality of precipitation, and changes in the SORT of precipitation: more rain, less snow (and thus less glacier ice in places that have glaciers). Because mountain snowpacks and glaciers are very important in our water cycle--they amount to natural reservoirs--droughts will be especially severe when they do occur. (And they do.)

It would be entirely prudent for Metro and other governmental bodies in Oregon and Washington to give some thought now to how we might accommodate "climate refugees". Scoff now, and you and especially your children will have to scramble later.