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Show Local population boom registers 1.42 on the Salami Scale l fmi(w vm "Ji - J zr-. t mi itc- ' ' i '";; T1'JM l ujjjuj... iwlii rir nmiilf -rr "" .-. ..x,., . ,r...-..., ..n-i No bologna: The phone book has grown by .16 pounds I since 1980. in u mm i nil ihbiiiiw ' m ' ' J!!iLJlll!'" "" "II"IUJ"'"" I -J . UuAM by David Hampshire How much has Park City grown in the five years since the . last official census? Since that question is on everybody's lips these days, the Park Record set out Monday afternoon to conduct its own , long-range scientific study. However, Publisher Jan W ilk-ing ilk-ing said he could not spare the manpower to conduct a door-to-door survey before the paper's Wednesday noon news deadline. So the staff took a page out of Mountain Bell's book, or rather several pages. The raw data was found in the bottom drawer of a file cabinet in the editor's office: a collection of ragged phone books dating back to 1980, the year of the last government census, and the survey sur-vey was conducted using the salami scale at the Park City Central Check-In Deli.. To establish a point of reference, the 1980 phone book was set on the scale. It weighed in at .38 pounds. Then the phone books for the following five years were weighed in order, finishing with the 1985 book which is being distributed this week. The results (dram roll, please): according to Ma Bell's bible, the Park City area has grown 42 percent since the 1980 census, from a scrawny .38 pound book in 1980 to a plump .54 pounds in 1985. A year-by-year analysis shows a steady period of growth from 1980 to 1983: the book grew by .05 pounds in 1981, by .04 pounds in 1982 and by another .03 pounds in 1983. Then came a one-year pause the phone book stayed at an even half-pound between 1983 and 1984 before it began its upward climb again in 1985 with another spurt of .04 pounds. But those who are regular readers of the local phone book may recognize a flaw in the Ma BellSalami Scale (patent pend- ine) System. That's right, the phone book includes not only the Park City area but also Coalville and Heber. So another system was used to make the data more specific to Park City. The system? Count the Park City pages. When this method is used, it shows an even more dramatic rate of growth for the Park City-Snyderville City-Snyderville area: from 18.6 pages in 1980 to 35.8 pages in 1985. That's an increase of more than 92 percent in five years! Here again there may be some factors which bias the results. For one, Michael D. Gallivan of 1385 Lowell Ave. has no less than 27 different phone numbers (count 'em!) listed in the 1985 book under his name alone. For another, Lane Howell of 1255 Empire Ave. has 22 different numbers. But these peculiarities aside, the phone book method has to be at least as reliable as the U.S. Census Bureau. And it's a lot cheaper too. - - r l tH"oaA'WTf ii,,,,,,,,,, , ' . ' ' |