Mayor's Corner: Lakewood On The Rise

It has been a joy to see children and teens walking to school this week in Lakewood. The start of the school year is always a time of hope, and it’s clear that parents keep choosing our city as the place to raise their families because of the quality of life Lakewood offers. I look forward to continuing to work with the school board to ensure the City and the School District maintain our strong partnership and provide families with the services and amenities they expect and deserve. We are the only local district that does not bus children, which speaks to our highly walkable city and our smart planning on where to locate schools. With so many children walking to school, please remember to pay extra attention as our young ones traverse Lakewood streets on their way to and from each school each day.   

With so many young families continuing to make Lakewood their home, our city is on a trajectory for future growth and continued prosperity. I hope that you have seen the data about Lakewood that was released recently by the US Census. It’s good news for our city and shows that we are headed in the right direction.

Each year the census bureau issues estimates for populations in cities across the country. And for the past five years, those forecasts have put Lakewood’s population below our true number as shown by the official 2020 Census data that was recently released. We exceeded those census estimates by over 1,500 people and once again, our population topped 50,000. That makes Lakewood the third largest city in the county and one of the top 20 in the entire state. With our efforts to add single family homes on available lots on residential streets and more dense multi-unit housing on commercial corridors, Lakewood will add hundreds of homes in the next 2 -5 years. We expect to grow, and we will do so in smart ways that ensure our community continues to provide excellent services and continues to be a great place to live.

Those census numbers are important for key federal funding that our city uses for essential services, like keeping our streets in shape. But beyond the bottom line, these Census numbers also confirm something that I think we all feel these days in Lakewood – that we are a city on the rise and a destination of choice. The best is yet to come for this city we all love to call home.