Southern MSA growth rates, 2000-2005

[krazeeboi]

Here are the growth rates for Southern MSAs from 2000-2005, as listed here. For the sake of brevity, I have only included the principal city of the MSA in the list instead of the official designation of the Census Bureau (e.g., Houston instead of Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown).

MSAs of 1 million+ residents

MSA					  2000 pop.		 2005 pop.		  Change

Atlanta				  4,247,981		 4,917,717			15.8%

Austin				   1,249,763		 1,452,529			16.2%

Birmingham			   1,052,238		 1,090,126			3.6%

Charlotte				1,330,448		 1,521,278			14.3%

Dallas				   5,161,544		 5,819,475			12.7%

Houston				  4,715,407		 5,280,077			12.0%

Jacksonville			 1,122,750		 1,248,371			11.2%

Louisville			   1,161,975		 1,208,452			4.0%

Memphis				  1,205,204		 1,260,905			4.6%

Miami					5,007,564		 5,422,200			8.3%

Nashville				1,311,789		 1,422,544			8.4%  

New Orleans			  1,316,510		 1,319,367			0.2% 

Oklahoma City			1,095,421		 1,156,812			5.6%

Orlando				  1,644,561		 1,933,255			17.6%

Richmond				 1,096,957		 1,175,654			7.2%

Tampa					2,395,997		 2,647,658			10.5%

San Antonio			  1,711,703		 1,889,797			10.4% 

Virginia Beach		   1,576,370		 1,647,346			4.5%

MSAs of 500,000-1 million residents

MSA					  2000 pop.		 2005 pop.		  Change

Augusta				  499,684			520,332			 4.1%

Baton Rouge			  705,973			733,802			 3.9%

Cape Coral			   440,888			544,758			 23.6%

Charleston			   549,033			594,899			 8.4%

Columbia				 647,158			689,878			 6.6%

El Paso				  679,622			721,598			 6.2%

Greensboro			   643,430			674,500			 4.8%

Greenville			   559,940			591,251			 5.6%

Jackson				  497,197			522,580			 5.1%

Knoxville				616,079			655,400			 6.4%

Lakeland, FL			 483,924			542,912			 12.2%

Little Rock			  610,518			643,272			 5.4%

McAllen, TX			  569,463			678,275			 19.1%

Palm Bay, FL			 476,230			531,250			 11.6%

Raleigh				  797,071			949,681			 19.1%

Sarasota				 589,959			673,035			 14.1%

Tulsa					859,532			887,715			 3.3%

MSAs of 250,000-500,000 residents

MSA					  2000 pop.		 2005 pop.		  Change

Asheville				369,171			392,831			 6.4%

Beaumont, TX			 385,090			383,530			-0.4%

Brownsville, TX		  335,227			378,311			 12.9%

Charleston, WV		   309,635			306,435			-1.0%

Chattanooga			  476,531			492,126			 3.3%

Columbus				 281,768			284,299			 0.9%

Corpus Christi		   403,280			413,553			 2.5%

Deltona, FL			  443,343			490,055			 10.5%

Durham				   426,493			456,187			 7.0%

Fayetteville, AR		 347,045			405,101			 16.7%

Fayetteville, NC		 336,609			345,536			 2.7%

Fort Smith, AR		   273,170			284,994			 4.3%

Gulfport				 246,190			255,383			 3.7%

Hickory, NC			  341,851			355,654			 4.0%

Huntington, WV		   288,649			286,012			-0.9%

Huntsville			   342,376			368,661			 7.7%

Kingsport, TN			298,484			301,294			 0.9%

Killeen, TX			  330,714			351,528			 6.3%

Lexington				408,326			429,889			 5.3%

Lubbock, TX			  249,700			258,970			 3.7%

Mobile				   399,843			401,427			 0.4%

Montgomery			   346,528			357,244			 3.1%

Naples				   251,377			307,242			 22.2%

Pensacola				412,153			439,877			 6.7%

Roanoke				  288,309			292,983			 1.6%

Savannah				 293,000			313,883			 7.1%

Shreveport			   375,965			383,233			 1.9%

Spartanburg			  253,791			266,809			 5.1%

Tallahassee			  320,304			334,886			 4.6%

Wilmington			   274,532			315,144			 14.8%

Winston-Salem			421,961			448,629			 6.3%

I do believe I got them all.

[teshadoh]

Just to confirm something krazee - does the 2000 population include the new MSA definition or the old? The only issue would be some MSA populations jumped significantly larger due to county inclusions - if the population changed. Otherwise, I still can't believe the growth rate Atlanta has despite it being that large, large populations & high growth rates combinations are rare.

[Martinman]

What's going on in Fayetteville Arkansas with a 16.7% growth rate? All the other high growth areas are pretty much expected.

[krazeeboi]

Just to confirm something krazee - does the 2000 population include the new MSA definition or the old? The only issue would be some MSA populations jumped significantly larger due to county inclusions - if the population changed. Otherwise, I still can't believe the growth rate Atlanta has despite it being that large, large populations & high growth rates combinations are rare.

Good question. I'm not sure, but I'm thinking that they used the current definition to get the 2000 figures for those metros that got broken up (eg, Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson, Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point, etc.).

And not only did some MSA populations jump due to county inclusions, but some shrunk due to a county or counties forming their own micropolitan or metropolitan areas. Again, if the analysts did what I said above, that would have taken care of that.

What's going on in Fayetteville Arkansas with a 16.7% growth rate? All the other high growth areas are pretty much expected.

That was a surprise to me as well. So was McAllen, TX's growth rate.

[sleepy]

Good question. I'm not sure, but I'm thinking that they used the current definition to get the 2000 figures for those metros that got broken up (eg, Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson, Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point, etc.).

And not only did some MSA populations jump due to county inclusions, but some shrunk due to a county or counties forming their own micropolitan or metropolitan areas. Again, if the analysts did what I said above, that would have taken care of that.

That was a surprise to me as well. So was McAllen, TX's growth rate.

Fayetteville is home of WalMart, the Univ. of AR, and a booming economy. It was right up there in the top for growth from 1990-2000 as well.

McAllen's growth I would suspect comes from immigration, although the Rio Grande Valley attracts a lot of retirees as well.

[dimebag1980]

Neither Fayetteville, AR nor McAllen, TX were a surprise to me. Living in this area, it's common knowledge that both of those metro areas are growing rapidly. Fayetteville, AR, or Northwest Arkansas Metro, is the home of many large companies like Wal-Mart, Tyson, J.B. Hunt, etc and has been growing rapidly for quite some time. I recall reading about McAllen, TX as well, but can't recall what the major contributing factor is for their rapid growth.