I suspect, as with a lot of states, Montana's population is anything but uniform. Most of the east half of the state continues to loose population, the only two exceptions being Yellowstone County (Billings) and perhaps the Bakken oil patch on the eastern border. On the flip side, are Gallatin, Missoula, and Flathead Counties in the west. The population in Gallatin County has essentially doubled since the year 2000, now the second most populous county in the state. All the attendant growth problems are indelibly manifest. Bozeman doesn't remotely resemble the place I grew up in. Some changes are definitely for the good, but considerably more are detrimental to the environs. The drainage that runs through part of our place was accessed only by a foot/Jeep trail prior to 1980 when the Forest Service built an actual road into it. It went from absolutely pristine to totally trampled in the subsequent 4 decades.