How Big Is Rochester’s Daytime Population?

It's no surprise that a lot of people commute into Rochester each weekday, but just how big does the population get each day?

A friend and I were talking about downtown Rochester, and how the many people you see on the sidewalks downtown reminded him of being in a much bigger city-- like St. Paul, for example-- or on the U of M campus between classes.

I said that I thought I recalled seeing a survey that put Rochester's weekday population much higher than our most recent 2014 population estimate of 111,402 (which is according to THIS Med City Beat story), thanks to all the commuters who might live elsewhere in Minnesota, but head to Rochester to work.

And sure enough, if you look at this survey from 2013, it shows that Rochester's population swells by a significant amount during the workday.

According to this Post-Bulletin story, there are nearly "5,000 daytime commuters in Rochester, said Phil Wheeler, planning director for Rochester/Olmsted County. That estimate comes from another set of U.S. Census statistics, the Longitudinal Employer Household Dynamics dataset."

Which, when you add up all of Mayo Clinic's and IBM's daily commuters, along with Rochester Public Schools commuters as well as the 6,000 hotel rooms the story says are available in the Med City, puts our workday population closer to 160,000 or higher.

That's a pretty big jump. It's no surprise Rochester is already the third biggest city in Minnesota-- and the largest outside the Twin Cities metro area.

And, I believe those estimates, too-- especially when I get caught in traffic between 4:30 or 5 each night!