The U.S. Census bureau released the first set of 2010 Census data on Tuesday. The Oklahoma City Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which includes Oklahoma, Cleveland, Canadian, Logan, Grady, Lincoln and McClain counties, saw a growth rate of 14.4 percent in the past decade. This helped add 157, 566 people to the area, which brings the OKC metro to 1,252,987.
Our neighbors to the north grew at a lesser pace, with the Tulsa MSA growth rate at 9.1 percent. The state of Oklahoma grew at 9.7 percent, which was slightly under the national average of 9.7 percent.
Canadian County has the region’s largest growth by county with a 31.8 percent growth rate. McClain, Logan and Cleveland counties all had growth in the 20 percentile.
The state’s Hispanic population grew 85.2 percent, and now makes up 8.7 percent of the total Oklahoma population. In Oklahoma County, Hispanic/Latinos comprise 15.1 percent of the population, and 17.2 percent of the population of Oklahoma City.
While the white population grew by 3 percent, those identifying as “some other race” or “two or more races” grew by 86.3 percent and 41.9 percent, respectively. While these two groups make up only 10 percent of the state’s population, it does indicate that our makeup is becoming more diverse.
The Census data will have an impact on our state legislative boundaries. The trend of people moving to the more urban MSAs will mean that state House and Senate voting districts will be redrawn this year.
While some of the larger communities in the ACOG region sustained growth, several of our member communities took a dip in numbers, including Arcadia, Bethany, Del City, Nichols Hills, Nicoma Park and the Village. The reason for this could be natural attrition, people moving to another city, or even housing and apartment razings. In small communities, these influences can negatively impact population shifts.
As far as transportation planning, it is too early to predict if our urbanized area, or transportation planning area, will be impacted. We’ll monitor the data to see if changes will be made for our next long-range plan.