June 24, 2011 update — Here’s a spreadsheet look at population data on the SEAGO region communities from the 2010 Census.
ADOC prepares official population estimates and projections for Arizona, the individual counties, and sub-county areas. (Note: Estimates provide current and past population figures, while projections forecast future population).
According to ADOC estimates and projections, the SEAGO region will grow by 10.8 percent between 2009 and 2015. Santa Cruz County is projected to have the highest rate of growth during that period at 17.2 percent, followed by Cochise County at 13.1 percent. Graham and Greenlee counties are projected to decline in population.
A problem with the ADOC population projections is they were prepared in 2006 using estimates for the year 2005 as a baseline, while the most recent population estimates by that agency are for the year 2009.
As a result, actual population growth for the years 2006-2009 is not factored into the projections. For those years, growth in Cochise and Santa Cruz counties was slower than projected by ADOC, while growth in Graham and Greenlee counties was faster than projected.
This threatens the reliability of the ADOC projections, particularly for Graham and Greenlee counties since the faster rate of actual growth from 2006 to 2009 reverses the direction of the previous projections.
To account for the 2006-2009 estimated population growth, the Cochise College Center for Economic Research (CER) prepared population projections for the SEAGO region applying Holt‘s Method of Exponential Data Smoothing to ADOC population estimates from 2001 through 2009.
These projections suggest a faster rate of growth than the ADOC projections for the SEAGO region overall (13.2 vs. 10.8 percent) with slower rates of growth in the counties of Cochise (10.9 vs. 13.1 percent) and Santa Cruz (13.9 vs. 17.2 percent) and faster rates of growth in the counties of Graham (22.9 vs. -1.2 percent) and Greenlee (1.3 vs. -5.8 percent).
According to CER projections, Graham County will grow at the fastest rate in the SEAGO region, followed by Santa Cruz, Cochise, and Greenlee counties. Cochise County is projected to add the largest number of new residents (15,295) followed by Graham County (9,106), Santa Cruz County (6,669), and Greenlee County (112).
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