[Grovenet] America's Trillion-Dollar Baby

[David Morelli]

On Feb 8, 2007, at 2:25 PM, Ron D'Eau Claire wrote:

> Carol:
>
> ...
> That raises an interesting question: What percentage of the 20,000  
> residents of Forest Grove work in Forest Grove? I suspect it's less  
> than half, but I don't know. Also, I suspect it's a declining  
> number. The number of commuters is growing.
>
> Even if it's a fairly small number who commute, that means that  
> Forest Grove is being driven not by the needs of the community we  
> call Forest Grove, but by the needs of the larger Portland  
> metropolitan area. I suspect we are already simply another  
> "neighborhood" of that metropolis. And it's a growing metropolis.
>
> Ron D'Eau Claire

Good questions.  I would suggest that we ask the inverse as well.   
What percentage of the jobs in the Forest Grove vicinity are filled  
by persons commuting into Forest Grove?

Some time in the last few decades, the jobs and workers were in rough  
balance.  Since that time it has fallen out of balance and is moving  
further away.  The loss of Matshushita and the Pacific University  
graduate programs hurt those numbers just recently.

That imbalance is a likely suspect for the imbalance in the city's  
budget.

David