From the “conflicting statistics” files, here comes a doozy of a trend, as analyzed by the website Business Insider. According to a post that went up today that looked at which municipalities in each state had the youngest overall population, it appears Bangor has the youngest population of any city in Maine. Not Portland. Bangor. Huh?
Despite lots of research that points to Portland and Cumberland County being the only places that received an uptick in population and in young people overall, as far as actual cities go, Bangor has the youngest overall age, at 35.5.
While that may seem like a positive statistic, just hold your horses. Despite the average Bangorian being a spritely 35 and a half years of age, that still puts them at the oldest overall age for the entire country. The oldest. Older than New Hampshire, and older, by more than 5 years, to the next closest city on the list — Elko, Nevada, at 30. So while it might be a nice thing for Bangor, it’s still reflective of Maine’s generally graying population.
As a non-Maine aside, the youngest city on the list is Kiryas Joel, New York, a majority Hasidic Jewish community with an average age of 11.4 — probably because folks there get married very young and have lots of children, very quickly.