Survey says: The fastest-growing American cities are in the South

Four of the top five fastest-growing cities are located in Texas, according to the US Census Bureau.

|
Brian Snyder/Reuters/File
The US flag and the Texas State flag fly over the Texas State Capitol in Austin, Texas, in March.

Ten of the 15 fastest-growing cities with populations of 50,000 or more were spread across the South in 2016, with four of the top five found in Texas, according to new population estimates released Thursday by the US Census Bureau.

Conroe, Texas, a northern Houston suburb, was the fastest-growing of the 15, seeing a 7.8 percent increase from 2015 to 2016, a growth rate more than 11 times that of the nation.

The rest of the top five fastest-growing large cities were Frisco, Texas, a northern Dallas suburb, with a 6.2 percent increase; McKinney, Texas, another northern Dallas suburb, saw a 5.9 percent increase; Greenville, S.C., ran up a 5.8 percent increase; and Georgetown, Texas, a northern Austin suburb, had a 5.5 percent increase.

“Overall, cities in the South continue to grow at a faster rate than any other US region,” said demographer Amel Toukabri of the bureau’s population division.

Since the 2010 Census, the populations of large Southern cities grew by an average of 9.4 percent, while cities in the West grew by 7.3 percent. Northeastern cities showed 1.8 percent growth, while populations of Midwestern cities grew by 3.0 percent.

Four cities in the West were among the top 15: Bend, Oregon; Buckeye, Arizona; Lehi, Utah; and Meridian, Idaho. One Midwestern city, Ankeny, Iowa, made the top 15, while the Northeast was shut out.

New York remains the largest US city by a wide margin, its population of 8.5 million people being more than twice that of the 4 million of runner-up Los Angeles. Chicago trailed in third place with 2.7 million residents, despite a population loss of 8,638.

Phoenix showed the largest one-year numerical population increase of 32,113 from 2015 to 2016.

League City, Texas, situated between Houston and Galveston, was the lone city to cross the 100,000 population threshold, reaching 102,010 in 2016.

Only North Dakota and the District of Columbia saw the addition of housing units increase by more than the pre-2007 levels of 1.4 percent. North Dakota housing stock increased by 1.6 percent from 2015 to 1026, while that in D.C. grew by 1.4 percent.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Survey says: The fastest-growing American cities are in the South
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2017/0525/Survey-says-The-fastest-growing-American-cities-are-in-the-South
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe