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Missoula County growing, but slowly
By ROBERT STRUCKMAN of the Missoulian

The population of Missoula County is growing, but not nearly as fast as most locals think, says economist Larry Swanson of the O'Connor Center for the Rocky Mountain West.

“We've built into our minds a growth rate at 4 percent. We've become almost panicky. At 4 percent, you have to be, but at 1 percent, we can be deliberative,” Swanson said Tuesday.

Missoula's population boomed - growing from 1.6 percent to 3.2 percent per year - from about 1991 to 1996, Swanson said, citing numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau. In more recent years, that growth has lagged a bit.

In 2005, the county's population grew at only about 1 percent. He expects that average rate to continue, taking Missoula County's population from 99,018 last year to about 110,000 by 2015.

The construction boom of the past five or six years has often been cited as evidence of gangbusters growth, Swanson said, but that's misleading. In fact, until the late 1990s housing construction in Missoula had not met the county's needs for years, creating a pent-up demand that prodded construction and buoyed home prices, he said.

Some of Missoula's continued growth will come from in-migration. Most recently, the Census shows a peak in 2003 with a net inflow of about 960 people to Missoula County. Those numbers dropped by about one-third in 2004 and again by one-third to 395 in 2005.

But while inflow has slowed, the number of annual births in Missoula County has accelerated, according to data compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics.

From a low of 992 births in 1997, the numbers have increased almost every year since, reaching 1,147 births in 2004 and 1,200 births in 2005.

During the 1980s and early and mid-1990s, as birth rates declined, Missoula County Public Schools closed elementary buildings, Swanson noted. Demand for those facilities will begin to rebound, he said.

The slower-than-hyped population growth may not spell trouble for Missoula retail and service industries, Swanson said, because Missoula serves as a trade center for surrounding counties. Growth in those counties has slowed, too.

The real problem may be with a lack of infrastructure, Swanson predicted. During the booming growth years, the city and county neglected expensive infrastructure. In the coming years, local government may well find itself strapped as it tries to handle the demands of the population with fewer easy dollars, he said.

Likewise, if growth continues to slacken, Missoula's economy could take a hit. The local economy depends too much on construction, which depends too heavily on continued demand for housing, Swanson said.

A final misconception about Missoula's newcomers involves the notion that it's dominated by wealthy individuals from California. In fact, just as many newcomers are low-wage workers from other counties in Montana, he said.

What are the answers? Swanson hopes community leaders and legislators will discuss options such as a local sales tax as well as easy-to-obtain job training for more of Missoula's work force.

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