Residents of the greater Seattle area have all been feeling the pressures of population growth over the last several months. Not only are we seeing increased activity in the housing market, but plenty are moving to our area to take advantage of the economy, new technology jobs, quality of life, and more.
A new study from The Puget Sound Regional Council reported by Geek Wire states that Seattle and the surrounding counties have added 86,320 new residents between April 2015 and 2016. This marks our largest population gain this century. When you average that out, we’re looking at about 236 new people calling Seattle home every single day. King County saw the biggest growth at 2.5 percent with 52,300 people.
If we continue with numbers at that rate, the Puget Sound area will likely pass the 4 million resident mark by the time you read this.
As Geek Wire reports, we can largely attribute this growth to the expansion of the region’s tech booms and major employers such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Boeing. The success of these companies has helped to spark a growth in the startup environment as well. Additionally, dozens of big companies have decided to set up their engineering centers here.
Geek Wire continues their analysis of the report and our population growth by reminding us that this isn’t the first time we’ve seen expansion like this. “The region’s population has grown by more than 80,000 people in one year five times since the 1960s.” They quote the report stating, “these rapid population changes have occured over two to three years before settling back to a steadier rate of change.” Looks like we may be seeing this continued growth for another year or two.
Read the full story from Geek Wire.