Fun With Census #s: Ranking Cities By Population Growth Per Square Mile
There are lots of problems with looking at census data on a city limits basis (which is how the census presents it). One issue is that cities have arbitrary municipal limits; for example, San Francisco is only ~46 square miles whereas Jacksonville, FL is ~747 square miles. Comparing such wildly different land areas is obviously difficult.
So I had some fun with the Census population estimates, and took the 50 cities with the largest absolute two-year population increase, and then divided that increase by the square miles within the city limits (using the land area, i.e., excluding square miles covered by water).
Why did I use two-year data? Because one-year data is way too noisy (especially with Census estimates), and going back beyond two years relates back to the COVID-era population losses. I'm mostly interested in how cities are growing in the post-COVID era.
The results (again, looking at only the cities within the top 50 absolute largest growers) are as follows:
- Newark
- NYC
- Seattle
- McKinney, Texas (Dallas Suburb)
- Miami
- New Braunfels, Texas (San Antonio Suburb)
- San Francisco
- Washington DC
- Port St Lucie, FL
- Charlotte
Take away from this what you will.
I should note that the picture is much different if you go back 5 years to 2020. Although NYC/SF are rebounding, they're still below their pre-COVID populations (i.e., they have a net population loss since 2020).
p.s. A note on %s (since some people complain about using absolute population changes vs % changes): If I used percentages, this would generate nothing but small cities no one has ever heard of (I think "Buckeye City" jumps to #1). Absolutes are, of course, not perfect. But neither are percentages. Are we really going to put more weight on a few thousand people moving to Buckeye City than 150k moving to NYC in two years just because Buckeye City's % is better?
Edit: Source Census for population changes can be found here: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2020s-national-detail.html#v2025