Water and Pollution Control Department

Description of Ames, Iowa

The City of Ames is a center for retail trade, education, research, and services in central Iowa. The Ames trade area is mostly comprised of Story County and portions of Boone and Hamilton Counties, west and north of Story County. Business activity involves mostly small-to-medium sized commercial and light industrial facilities. In addition, numerous governmental agencies (city, county, state, and federal) provide employment opportunities in education, research, transportation, and numerous other activities.

Census data for the City of Ames have been compiled from census bureau publications and Iowa State University offices. The following population statistics for Ames are provided.

	1970	1980	1990	2000
Total City population	39,505	45,775	47,198	50,731
ISU Spring enrollment	17,652	21,576	23,522	24,333
Population in Households	30,077	34,160	36,854	41,609
Number of Households	10,716	14,015	15,613	18,085
Average persons/household	2.18	2.44	2.36	2.30
Persons in group quarters	9,428	11,635	10,344	9,122

The Ames Planning and Housing Department land use data for the area within the corporate limits of Ames are as follows:

Area Type	January 1987		December 2003
Area Type	Area (acres)	% of Total	Area (acres)	% of Total
Residential	2,901	22	3,298	25
Commercial	484	4	969	7.3
Industrial	369	3	604	4.5
Public/Semi-Public	4,091	32	5,706	43
Non-Urban	1,959	16	201¹	1.5
Transportation/ Communication/Utilities	2,395	18	2¹	0.02
Vacant	579	5	2,474	18.7
Totals	12,616	100	13,255	100

¹ Due to changes is assessed classifications, this number may appear low.

The data show the primarily domestic, commercial, and light industrial nature of the Ames community. It follows that the wastewater characteristics are primarily domestic.

This reference may be updated as needed without program modifications.