According to the estimate of population change for the Rapid City metropolitan statistical area, which includes Pennington and Meade counties, the area gained more than 2 thousand 3 hundred people between 2011 and 2012.  According to Kip Harrington with the City of Rapid City, the significance of the numbers is that it shows not just growth, but an increasing rate of growth.   Harrington says, "Our population has grown over the last few years, but this year, we saw an increase in the rate of growth. It's a higher percentage of the overall total than in previous years."   Other data from the Census Bureau shows that the most dramatic factor in population trends on the upper Great Plains is the developing oil and gas boom.   And it shows that a decades-long out-migration of population from the Great Plains is finally being reversed because of the boom.

Al Van Zee