Renton’s population is about 82,000

With our most recent annexations, we are growing pretty big. There are no prizes for being bigger, but it is not inherantly bad either…so long as we can keep the level of service up to all areas of the city. Traffic continues to get worse, of course, but this is true whether the areas grow around us in King County or whether the land is annexed onto the city. Our zoning is generally about the same as, or less dense than, King County’s in the areas adjacent to Renton (within the urban growth boundary).

Here is an email I received earlier today:
______________________________________________________

—–Original Message—–
From: Denis Law [mailto:DLaw@ci.renton.wa.us]
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2008 9:30 AM
To: Don Persson; Greg Taylor; King Parker; Marcie Palmer; Randy Corman; Rich Zwicker; Terri Briere
Cc: Alexander Pietsch; Julia Medzegian
Subject: City population

With the recent annexation of the New Life/Aqua Barn and Liberty, our unofficial population appears to exceed 82,000 people. Alex Pietsch will provide you with more specific detail at the upcoming emerging issues at Committee of the Whole. The unofficial number provided by census takers for New Life was 2,377. Alex predicts about 1,000 more from the Liberty Annexation.

Denis