The average number of people living in a dwelling, whether as a family or a household of unrelated persons, is a useful measurement to help forecast how many dwellings will be needed in the future. Figure 4-3 shows the percent of Bend households by number of persons for the past four census periods. Bend was following a trend toward smaller household size. However, the most recent Census data shows the number of households with three or four persons remains constant or represents a larger share of the number of households.

Table 4-4 compares the average household size for the city, county, and state since 1950. This comparison of persons per household shows a trend of fewer persons per household continuing for the county and the state. Bend differs in that an average household size of 2.4 persons per household has remained constant between 1990 and 2000.