The fastest-growing big cities in the nation are concentrated in the South and West.
As the newly released Census maps below show, cities with populations above 100,000 in those regions grew most between 2000 and 2010, and 2010 and 2013. And not all of them were the flagship cities in their region.
“[M]any of the fastest-growing were near a larger principal city of a metro area, and some were principal cities themselves,” the Census Bureau notes in a Wednesday report.
The city that grew fastest from 2000 to 2010 (at 90 percent growth) was Gilbert, Ariz., near Phoenix. North Las Vegas, Nev. was second, with 87.9 percent growth. Fayetteville, N.C., was next, followed by Fontana, Calif. (near Riverside), and Cape Coral, Fla.
While shrinking cities were spread out across the country, many of them were concentrated around the Great Lakes.
Only two large cities west of the Mississippi lost population from 2010 to 2013
Four of the five fastest-growing cities since 2010 were in Texas. Frisco was first, with 16.9 percent growth, followed by McKinney (13.3 percent), Austin (12 percent), Cary, N.C., (11.7 percent), and Midland (11.5 percent).
Several big cities that lost residents between 2000 and 2010 recovered at least some of that population between 2010 and 2013. New Orleans, for example, grew 10.1 percent over that latter period.
Just two big cities west of the Mississippi shrank between 2010 and 2013: Beaumont, Tex., and St. Louis.
