Two Texas metro areas make biggest US population gains -US Census

Platte County’s population continues to grow, but Colfax County’s growth seems to have slowed, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s mid-decade estimates. According to US Census estimates, the St. Louis region-which includes 15 counties- saw a population increase of about 5,400 people, about two-tenths of a percent, last year. The Census Bureau reported Williamson’s population at 508,514 and its percentage growth was 16th in the nation by county. But, in aggregate, local population growth in 2015 looks ever more like it used to before the housing bubble, with the Sunbelt and the suburbs widening their leads.

In Jefferson County, to our west, the Census Bureau’s count was 116,229 people in 2010 and 117,635 in 2015, an increase of 1,406, or a 1 percent rise.

There’s no place like Texas and from the population growth over the past year of the four largest metro areas; tens of thousands of people across America are embracing that very fact.

The biggest population gains were in Texas counties in and around Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio, according to Census Bureau data. The number of births and new residents didn’t offset the loss.

It was the first time since at least 2010 that the county lost more residents to other counties than it gained. Three of those fast-growing counties – Wake, Durham and Chatham – are in the Triangle. Data shows that Cook County lost 10,488 residents in between 2014 and 2015-the steepest drop recorded in any county in the nation.

Downstate, there was population growth in all five counties that make up New York City and in Nassau County on Long Island.

Five Central Texas metropolitan areas also were among the 20 fastest growing – Midland, Odessa, Austin, College Station-Bryan, and Houston, the latter which accounts for two counties Harris and Fort Bend.

Combined, the four largest metro areas in Texas added 1,939,140 to the population of Texas from 2010 to 2015.