We just got around to taking a look at the latest population estimates from the Portland State University (and Patronage Center) estimators. For July 1, 2012, they're showing within the Portland city limits a population of 587,865. For the date one year prior, the official estimate was 585,845. That's an increase of a mere 0.34% over that one-year time span.

The three-year compound growth rate is only 0.33%, and the five-year is 0.68%.

It's amazing that we keep slapping up ugly, bulky apartment bunkers all over town, and building crazy trains to nowhere, when the number of people moving here has slowed to a trickle. But hey, that's Portland -- making developers and construction companies rich, and shaking everybody else down for more money every year.

We've been using a 0.7% growth rate on the City of Portland debt clock on our left sidebar, but we're cutting that now to 0.5%, to reflect the new reality. Thus, each resident's share of the city's long-term debt just went up a bit. Happy New Year!