Every year, the signs marking Lubbock’s population are updated so that drivers can have an up-to-date idea of the total population, but city officials say the number serves a much more important purpose as well.
Sheri Rand, the city GIS coordinator said they work hard each year to produce an accurate population number for city agencies to use.
“There are a lot of people, a lot of groups who need this number.” She said. “Neighborhood associations and like the fire department and the police department, they need to know how many citizens they are serving.”
Rand said the GIS department determines that number each year by combining a number of variable in a complex equation.
“You combine birth and death rates, Texas Tech enrollment, Census Bureau estimates as well as labor force trends.” She said. “Then we have the number of housing units in our landbase database.”
According to Rand, the estimated Lubbock city population for 2015 is 241,322.
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