[OC] Post-Pandemic Population Growth Trends, by US Metro Area (2022->2024)

[u/TA-MajestyPalm]

Graphic by me, created in Excel. All data from US Census here: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2020s-total-metro-and-micro-statistical-areas.html

I've created similar graphics in the past, but usually from 2020-2024. This is not the best time frame as it combines the abnormal covid years with post pandemic movement.

This time frame (2022-2024) shows the most current and ongoing population trends of the last 2 years.

I also wanted to better categorize the cities into broad cultural regions vs the arbitrary geographic census regions.

[u/Rarewear_fan]

Interesting stats that are often divorced by what many Reddit users claim. Go on any board related to moving or where specifically Americans talk about their lives, and many are saying cities like Pittsburgh, Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland are popping off, tons of people moving there, great places to live now, etc.

Now they have definitely gotten better in the last 10 years so there is truth, but the midwest and Northeast are not really growing anymore. In the South east it has popped off so much that house prices and property tax rates have exploded since COVID. They are stabilizing now, but the main driver for people moving (economic opportunity) has really gone up in the south along with the wealth it brought compared to even the 2000s.

[u/Tripod1404 → u/Rarewear_fan]

Some of this is also related to data being presented as percentages. 1% growth in Chicago metro area with 10M people is not too far off compared 6% growth at Orlando metro with 2.6M people.

[u/fastinserter → u/Tripod1404]

Yeah Raleigh with 5.31% growth is only 79k.

Many cities in the north already had a lot of people. South has more room because people lived where it was comfortable and the south was certainly not comfortable for a long time before AC, so higher growth rates don't necessarily even mean they are gaining more people than the northern cities.

[u/lilelliot → u/fastinserter]

I would suspect the Raleigh stats include the entire metro area, which is much more meaningful, and it's not like Durham, Apex, Morrisville, Cary, Holly Springs, Fuquay, Knightdale, Garner, Zebulon, etc haven't also been going gangbusters the past decade.

[u/evergleam498 → u/lilelliot]

I've been driving through that area once a year for annual beach trip for about a decade now and every single time I'm like 'omg this wasn't here last time! how does this area keep growing?'

[u/Spara-Extreme → u/evergleam498]

Driving through RDU area the only thing you're going to be seeing off of any of the highways are trees, trees and more trees. Its been that way for decades.

The growth of strip malls and housing is off the highway.

[u/Rarewear_fan → u/Tripod1404]

That's fair. I would also like to see which specific neighborhoods/areas in those cities are seeing the growth....most likely the wealthier areas. That's how it has been in mu city down south.

Another thing is you have more Americans continuing to move to cities from their small towns. If you live in rural Illinois, more and more of those people are leaving for Chicago as the closest city they can get to with actual opportunity.

[u/TA-MajestyPalm → u/Tripod1404]

Dallas, Houston, and Miami are the 4th, 5th, and 6th largest metro areas in the US, all growing at over double the national rate

[u/ABCosmos → u/TA-MajestyPalm]

There is so much complexity here that people want to sum up in a paragraph. Miami is highly desirable even though it has a high cost of living. Houston is appealing for it's low cost of living. Ultimately both are desired, but by different people for different reasons. This chart tells me DC and Miami are highly in demand, and people are willing to pay $$$ to live there.

Boston and NYC are surprisingly high considering they are "at capacity" and have very high costs of living. They must be in very high demand by people with money as well. (Or people are willing to live in terrible conditions to be there)

Southern cities have more room to expand and lower costs of living because they haven't been historically important cities that already grew, and they aren't currently in demand by the wealthy (Miami is an exception, and I'm sure there are a few others)

[u/CougarForLife → u/TA-MajestyPalm]

I think percentage change was the “correct” way of measuring this, despite people’s criticisms, but I would be curious to see same chart with raw change to compare.

[u/CiDevant → u/TA-MajestyPalm]

The Pop difference between the top three and the next three is staggering though.

[u/Tripod1404 → u/TA-MajestyPalm]

Yeah I don’t mean this applies to everything. But 1.63% increased in NYC metro with 20M people comes out at ~320k. 5.3% increase with Houston metro with 7M comes out as ~370k.