Post Falls leads area in population growth

POST FALLS - Post Falls led local cities in population growth from 2012 to 2013, according to a report released on Thursday by the Idaho Department of Labor.

Post Falls grew 2.5 percent - from 28,650 residents in 2012 to 29,357 in 2013.

"From a city and bank perspective, we're seeing the economy firm up," said Post Falls Mayor Ron Jacobson, who is also a senior vice president of Inland Northwest Bank. "It's still not as strong as we'd like to see, but at the same token you don't want to see rampant growth because that's difficult keeping up with."

Jacobson said he's not surprised at the growth rate because Post Falls, the state's 10th-largest city, has affordable housing and the city has the room to grow onto the Rathdrum Prairie.

Post Falls' population growth was the ninth-largest among all cities in the state. Star grew 6.7 percent, topping all cities.

Coeur d'Alene grew 1.8 percent from 45,592 to 46,402. It is the state's seventh-largest city.

Boise remains the state's largest city at 214,237, up 2,000 or .9 percent from 2012.

The state grew 1 percent, to 1.612 million people.

Idaho's largest cities continued growing at a faster pace than the rest of the state in 2013 but not as fast as in the past, according to the report.

The population of Idaho's 10 largest cities grew 1.7 percent from mid-2012 to mid-2013 compared to overall population growth of 1 percent. The population in the other 190 cities grew 0.7 percent while the population of the rural areas grew 0.4 percent.

More than 40 percent of the statewide 2013 population gain was in Ada County, the state's largest, that accounts for a quarter of the total population - more evidence of the state's gradual urbanization.