feel like you have just a little bit more elbow room here in Kodiak? It's not
your imagination. KMXT's Jay Barrett has more.
to figures released yesterday by the Alaska Department of Labor, The Kodiak
Island Borough's population between the year 2000 and 2009 fell by 53 people,
largely through out-migration.
Island Borough had 13,913 residents according to the 2000 census, but only
13,860 according to an estimate in the middle of last year. The population has
been up and down in that time, and was just shy of 14,000 in mid-2008. Between
then and the 2009 estimate, 94 left the island.
1,489 more people born in the borough than died between 2000 and 2009, but that
did not make up for the departure of 1,542. Despite the departures, Kodiak still
has more people than during the 1990 census where 13,309 people were recorded.
The Kodiak Island
Borough is not alone in the out-migration of residents - 55-percent of Alaska towns
lost population in the decade, including other larger communities such as
Juneau, Sitka, Ketchikan and Barrow.
population inside Kodiak City limits has increased by 292 residents since 2000,
up to 6,626.
Alaska's population increased during the past 10 years by 64,781 people, mostly
through natural increase, though over 22-hundred people immigrated to Alaska
between mid 2008 and mid 2009, when the economy in the Lower 48 went into
recession. Most of the population increases occurred in Anchorage, the
Matanuska-Susitna Borough and the Kenai Peninsula Borough.
current population of 692,314 puts us ahead of Wyoming, Vermont and North
Dakota as the 47th most populous state.