Night and Day

The Census Bureau has calculated daytime populations of cities. Which King County city do you think has the highest night-to-day increase? Seattle? Bellevue? Redmond? Nope. Tukwila.

That's right, that skinny gerrymander of a city down on the Duwamish. Unofficial slogan: "Tukwila--you know, Southcenter." 136% increase in population due to commuting (not counting shopping!).

Redmond also more than doubles in size, with a 103% increase. Bellevue only has a 40% increase and Seattle a 28% increase. But that 28% is the third highest increase for cities over 500,000 residents (after Washington and and Boston).

The highest in the whole state is Fife, at 199%. It triples in size every day. After Tukwila and Redmond come Issaquah (74%), Woodinville (72%), McChord AFB (70%), Gig Harbor (66%), and DuPont (64%). I bet you thought most of those were bedroom communities! The real bedroom communities are Brier (-48%), Newcastle (-43%), West Richland (-41%), and Lake Forest Park (-40%).

The national winner is Lake Buena Vista, Florida, with a daily increase of 192,238%. Yeah, I typed that right. Sixteen people live there, but 30,768 people work there. Egads.