No large city grew faster than Phoenix.

San Francisco CA

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Georgia’s great Republican strongholds, went for Hillary Clinton, in 22016, and Mr. Biden in 2020 Census Updates: Survey Shows Which Cities Gained and Lost Population Phoenix vaulted ahead of Philadelphia to officially become the fifth-biggest city in the United States since the last census. The census numbers confirmed the scorching pace of growth in Phoenix. Arizona’s desert capital grew at the fastest rate among America’s biggest cities, vaulting it ahead of Philadelphia to officially become the fifth-biggest city in the United States since the last census. Phoenix’s population grew from 1.4 million people in 2010 to 1.6 million in 2020, a rate of 11.2 percent, according to the Census Bureau. The increase has been fueled not just by immigration and sun-seeking retirees but also by the arrival of tech companies and middle-class families from California and other more expensive parts of the country seeking more affordable housing. The Phoenix metro area continued to sprawl outward into the desert, with outlying suburbs such as Buckeye growing by nearly 80 percent over the past 10 years. But Phoenix is also growing up, booming with new condo towers and rowhouses filling in the downtown. All this growth has raised anxieties about how the region will supply enough water for all the new residents and their yards when brutal droughts and hotter summers are draining rivers and reservoirs. The population boom across Phoenix and surrounding Maricopa County has also translated into a political shift. President Biden narrowly won Arizona’s 11 electoral votes last November, eking out a win in what had once been a reliably Republican presidential state. New York City adds 629,000 people, defying predictions of its decline. Crowds in Times Square in Midtown Manhattan in June. Credit...Joshua Bright for The New York Times New York City has grown by more than 629,000 people — or nearly 8 percent — since 2010, reaching 8.8 million and defying predictions that its population was on the decline. “The Big Apple just got bigger!” Mayor Bill de Blasio wrote on Twitter, attributing the growth to his administration’s investment in prekindergarten programs, safe streets and working families. But city officials said the increase was at least in part a result of getting a better count. In recent years, New York’s Department of City Planning, which supplies data to the Census Bureau, added 265,000 housing units that had been missing from the bureau’s list, including both “hard to find” and newly constructed units. “This allowed the Census Bureau to enumerate half a million people which they would have otherwise missed,” said Arun Peter Lobo, New York City’s chief demographer. “Because we told them, they knew exactly where to go.” He said the population growth was “a shot in the arm” for a city struggling to recover from the pandemic, and a reminder of its strength. Even taking into account the possible loss of population during the pandemic, the city was thriving, he said. “The decline of New York City has been foretold very often — incorrectly,” he said. “I understand that this is largely a pre-Covid population, but adding over 600,000 people is like adding the population of Miami. It’s huge.” Each of the city’s five boroughs grew, with Brooklyn and Queens being the most populous. The Bronx’s population reached a record of 1.47 million, surpassing its 1970 high. Brooklyn, with 2.74 million people, came in only 2,000 people shy of its 1950 peak. With the new census figures, New York City now accounts for nearly 44 percent of the state’s total population. Population estimates from the last few years seemed to suggest that the city was shrinking. (The population grew rapidly over the first half of the decade, but began to decline after 2016.) Those estimates, however, were most likely based on incorrect data, according to the Department of City Planning. What does the path forward for New York City look like? Democratic mayoral nominee Eric Adams, playwright Jeremy O. Harris and chef Marcus Samuelsson will join Times journalists to explore what the future holds for New York and all American cities, in our latest virtual event for subscribers. The Villages, a retirement community in Florida, was the fastest-growing metro area over the last decade. Residents line dancing at Lake Sumter Landing Market Square in The Villages, Fla., in 2020. Credit...Eve Edelheit for The New York Times MIAMI — Amid a slowing of overall population growth in the United States, a Florida retirement community continued its rise to the top of the population charts: The Villages, a sprawling master planned community in Central Florida, was the fastest-growing metropolitan area over the last decade, according to census data released Thursday. About a 45-minute drive from Orlando, the area’s population jumped 39 percent since 2010 — from about 93,000 residents to about 130,000. The growth was fueled in large part by a steady stream of retirees lured by Florida’s year-round balmy weather, beaches and endless golfing. The community, a collection of homes and villages, has made the fastest-growing list of metropolitan cities for several decades. Its most recent growth spurt helped fuel Florida’s overall rise in population, which yielded an additional Congressional seat. Built in the 1960s as a collection of tracts that could be purchased by mail order, The Villages skyrocketed in popularity in the 1980s and 1990s as it expanded to include large-scale dining, shopping and other leisure activities, becoming a palm tree-lined, self-contained home for seniors beginning their next chapter. The Villages stretches across three counties but is mostly in Sumter County. It includes three ZIP codes, along with multiple town squares, movie theaters, grocery stores and libraries. The Villages is mostly white and conservative, and over the years has become a familiar campaign stop for Republican candidates. The census data tells Pine Bluff, Ark., what it already knew: It’s shrinking, quickly. A closed Planters Cotton Oil Mill storage facility in Pine Bluff, Ark., in 2018. Credit...Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency, via Getty Images The bad news for Pine Bluff, Ark., embedded in Thursday’s new census data, did not come much of a shock for civic leaders there: Their metro area saw a 12.5 percent population decline between 2010 and 2020, the largest percentage drop of any metro area in that period. The city itself now has about 41,250 residents, down from just over 49,000 a decade ago. But Pine Bluff residents have been living with a palpable sense of loss for years. A 2016 New York Times story recounted an ill-fated effort to use inmates and parolees to tear down hundreds of blighted, unoccupied homes. Set among fields of grains, beans, peas and cotton, Pine Bluff epitomizes the kinds of struggle that many smaller American hub cities have gone through in recent decades, first with the mechanization of agriculture, which reduced the need for field hands, and then foreign competition and outsourcing, which has dealt repeated blows to Pine Bluff’s manufacturing base. These twin forces have sent the city into a tailspin from which Pine Bluff has been unable to recover. “The economy continued to change, kids continued to leave,” State Representative Vivian Flowers, who represents the area, said in an interview Thursday. “And so then your tax base shrinks, and your ability to deal with infrastructure and beautify the city — all of that suffered.” The state recently stepped in to take over two poorly performing local school districts in the area (the districts were recently combined). The city in recent years has also earned a reputation for a staggeringly high homicide rate. In early June, a local TV news station reported that six slayings in the area occurred within a six-day span. Joni Alexander, a Pine Bluff City Council member, said Thursday that the area had struggled to tap into some of the hot sectors that are powering the growth of other metro areas, like technology and health care. She noted the announcement in July of the closure of a small auto-parts plant that had been in operation since the early 1980s.“We’re kind of dealing with a lot of things,” Ms. Alexander said. Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated Census figures for Pine Bluff, Ark. The city now has about 41,250 residents, down from just over 49,000 a decade ago; the figures of 87,500, down from just over 100,000, are for the Pine Bluff metropolitan area as a whole. The growth along the corridor between San Antonio and Austin is ‘kind of mind-blowing.’ Austin in April. Some regions like the Texas State capital of Austin and its suburbs have not been able to keep up with enough new homes and infrastructure to accommodate its new neighbors. Credit...Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times SAN ANTONIO — Not too long ago, the span of Interstate 35 in Texas linking San Antonio and Austin ran through a smattering of smaller cities and lots of wide-open land. Now, it’s a blur of subdivisions, commercial development and soul-crushing traffic, coalescing into a singular mass of population. As the U.S. Census Bureau released its decennial counts on Thursday, officials confirmed what has long been plainly visible in that stretch of Central and South Texas: Many new people were moving in. “It is kind of mind-blowing,” said Travis Mitchell, the mayor of Kyle, a bedroom community outside Austin that is one of those fast-growing cities along the interstate. “With growth comes extreme challenges.” Census officials specifically pointed out New Braunfels, a suburb north of San Antonio, as an example of cities perched just outside large metropolitan hubs that had experienced some of the most significant growth, with their populations expanding by at least 44 percent. There were two others in Texas: McKinney, outside of Dallas, and Conroe, which had been enveloped by the sprawling Houston metropolitan area. The growth has, in some ways, symbolized the promise of opportunity, economic and otherwise, that has been part of the state’s sales pitch to draw outsiders, particularly from California and New York. But it has also come with excruciating growing pains, as constant traffic jams have underscored the strain on infrastructure and surging home prices have boxed out longtime residents. The problem had intensified to the point that Austin hired a community displacement prevention officer in April, as city officials recognized that Black and Hispanic residents had been among those most punished by the impacts of gentrification. The populations swelled in the state’s metropolitan hubs, like Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth, and the Midland and Odessa area of the Permian Basin of West Texas. Houston gained more than 200,000 new residents, an increase of nearly 10 percent. Growth has been fueled by a large influx of Hispanic and African Americans. The size of the Latino population in Texas was just 0.4 percentage points behind that of the Anglo population, which is now a minority compared to nonwhite groups. But census officials said that growth was not universal across Texas, as many other parts of the vast state — in rural areas and smaller cities — saw their populations drained. The evolution has spurred questions about how the state’s political fortunes could be influenced. The change in demographics has boosted the optimism of Democrats, who have been courting the new arrivals as potential new voters. They have been buoyed by the party’s recent victories in places like Georgia and Arizona, where demographic shifts have corresponded with new political viability in states where Republicans had long been dominant. Still, Republicans maintain a tight grip on power at the statewide level. The census figures will translate to new seats in Congress. But that has set the stage for a combative redistricting process this fall. Oil turns a rural county in North Dakota into a boomtown. Pumpjacks and oil storage tanks near Watford City, N.D., 2018. Credit...Jim Wilson/The New York Times McKenzie County in western North Dakota grew at the fastest rate of any American county over the past decade, Census Bureau data showed, as the Bakken oil boom attracted thousands of workers and more than doubled the population. The exceptional rate of growth, especially early in the decade, put stress on the region’s housing, schools and infrastructure. The mostly rural county has ballooned 131 percent since 2010, rising to 14,700 residents from 6,400 residents. Nearby Williams County, home to Williston, grew by about 83 percent, to nearly 41,000 residents from about 22,400 in 2010. The flood of new residents in western North Dakota led to an explosion of development, with new hotels, restaurants and even a new airport. North Dakota grew at one of the highest rates of any state over the last decade, and the rise in new residents was not confined to the oil fields. In the eastern part of the state, Cass County, which includes Fargo, grew 23 percent, to nearly 185,000 residents. Grand Forks County grew about 9 percent, to 73,000 residents. Still, North Dakota remains one of the least populous states in the country, and its growth did not come close to gaining the state a second congressional district. The influx of newcomers to North Dakota runs counter to decades of trends on the rural Great Plains, where many counties peaked in population before the Dust Bowl and have been losing residents for almost a century. Diversity rises in Georgia, with whites making up only half the state. A polling location at Hull Middle School in Duluth, Georgia, an increasingly diverse community, north of Atlanta, during the 2018 midterm elections. Credit...Audra Melton for The New York Times Census data released on Thursday shows that Georgia, a state where white supremacy was for decades enshrined in law and custom, has seen a dramatic boom in ethnic and racial diversity in the last decade, a trend that is already having a profound effect on the politics of both the state and the nation. Previous census data suggested that whites were on their way to minority status in Georgia sometime in the next few years. But they are not quite there — yet. The new data shows white people currently make up 51.9 percent of the population, down from 59.7 percent in 2010. African Americans’ share of the overall population increased from 31.5 percent to 33 percent in the last decades, while Hispanics went from 8.8 percent to 10.5 percent of the population. And the number of Asians in the state jumped by more than 200,000 people, a 54.8 percent increase. Asians now make up 5.8 percent of the state population. Longtime Georgians have felt the change in the flavors of everyday life for years now, taking for granted the fact that good tlayudas can be had in Jonesboro, and serious bibimbap in Columbus. But most close watchers of Georgia politics also believe these demographic shifts also help explain the new competitiveness the Democratic Party now exhibits in Georgia, where Joe Biden narrowly defeated former President Donald J. Trump in November, and where two Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate, Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock, scored stunning upset victories over their Republican rivals shortly thereafter. As Georgia Republicans have sought to rally their base by raising concerns about illegal immigration and noncitizen voting, Democrats have been seeking to build a multicultural coalition that takes advantage of populous and diversifying areas like suburban Gwinnett County, which earlier boomed as whites fled the Atlanta city core. But the promise of good schools and ample housing stock eventually became a lure to people of all races as overt racial hostility declined in places like Gwinnett. The county, which was more than 90 percent white in 1970, is now 35.5 percent white. And the county, for decades one of Georgia’s great Republican strongholds, went for Hillary Clinton, in 2016, and Mr. Biden in 2020. Boston grew swiftly over the decade, as its white population waned. A view of the Boston skyline during the 55th Head of the Charles Regatta in October 2019. Credit...Maddie Meyer/Getty Images In past census cycles, th