Fastest Growing U.S. Metros: Atlanta tops all
 

Atlanta growth tops in nation

By BRIAN FEAGANS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/05/07
When Detroit accountant David Gibson married a Midtown Atlanta legal secretary a couple of years ago, his bride began preparing for a move to the Motor City.

Then it snowed.

"She changed her mind," Gibson said Wednesday, pumping his fist up and down at a Subway restaurant in Gwinnett County. "I was like, 'Yes' "

Gibson, 46, wasn't the only one who said "yes" to Atlanta.

No other metro area in the country added more residents — roughly 890,000 — between 2000 to 2006, according to U.S. Census Bureau city rankings released today. Dallas, Houston, Phoenix and Riverside, Calif., rounded out the top five.

Atlanta's surge has pushed the area above the 5 million-person mark, the census reported last month, to an estimated 5,138,000 in July 2006. That has led to less desirable No. 1 rankings — in average commute time increases, for example. But the region's continued magnetism speaks to its resilience in the face of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and dot-com industry woes, forces that since 2000 have crippled growth in many other cities.

"I think there was some talk a couple years ago that the bloom was off the rose in metro Atlanta," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "I think these numbers show that's not true."

Atlanta is now the clear leader in a national population shift toward the South and Sunbelt, Frey said. Many newcomers to the 28 counties of metro Atlanta have arrived from old economy cities around the Great Lakes. Others are fleeing the expensive housing bubbles of the Northeast in favor of Atlanta's comparatively cheap houses, Frey said.

As a result, since 2000, metro Atlanta has vaulted to No. 9 nationally in total population, passing Boston and Detroit.

Even New York, the nation's most populous metro area at 18.8 million, has mustered only half the increase that Atlanta has this decade.

The growth has challenged school systems and transportation officials to keep up, said Mike Alexander, chief of the research division at the Atlanta Regional Commission planning agency. Trailer classrooms and traffic jams are a daily reality in many parts of the region.

But the good news, Alexander said, is that people have had enough confidence to move here despite slower job growth than in the late 1990s. And now there are signs that employment is catching up, he said, with Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport recovered from the post-Sept. 11 slump and Delta Air Lines expected to emerge from bankruptcy this spring. "We've honestly already taken our hit on the tech sector," he said.

While roughly a third of metro Atlanta's growth came in the form of births, newcomers from outside the region drove most of the increase, the census figures revealed.

Soo Kwon of Duluth said she and her husband spent a decade in Chicago before moving to Atlanta last year in search of investment opportunities in the region's growing Korean community. Now Kwon, 36, is working as a clerk at Maum, an upscale cafe near Doraville filled with Midwestern transplants. Her husband works in commercial real estate.

Kwon recalled hearing about Atlanta's fabulous weather from friends who moved here four years earlier. Chicago, she said, was simply too cold.

Chalk up another one to the snow.

^^^ Sigh, whenever I hear about people leaving places like Chicago because of the cold weather (which is probably that way for only a good 1/4 of the calender year) it just breaks my heart because you leave something good, a great place to live, with so much to do, so much culture, so many missed opportunities simply because you were too lazy to put on a sweater. Not that there is anything wrong with any other city and not that Chicago/Chicagoland is losing people (400,000+ people is still a fairly big gain), it's just that the "weather card" is a pretty lame excuse. Why are so many other cities around the world which also have large seasonal temperature variances still thriving and gaining people? Paris, Moscow, London, Beijing, etc, etc, etc...
Somehow, I think (specifically) the weather claim is pretty dubious; I think a lot of it is solely about money and the (supposed) value one gets from newer, developing areas as compared to living in a dense, urban core area; it's still a pervasive myth in this country, coupled with the still-pervasive frontier mentality that a lot of people have as well, yet now it seems that the new American "frontier" is the exurb, which probably accounts for a lot of the Metropolitan growth which is being touted in articles like this.

I can't say I'm happy about this but migration patterns will eventually change. The South moved North for a few decades, now the North is moving South for a few decades. For all we know, Detroit will be America's boomtown in 2030.

I also don't understand the weather argument. Sure, I'd move to South Florida if I wanted subtropical weather and I'd move to the West Coast if I wanted a temperate climate, but ATL weather is no better than up north. Winters are still quite cold, except when the north has 20F ATL has 30F. Summers are very hot and humid. Bascally ATL has slightly warmer winters and summers.

Dallas makes even less sense. Summers in Dallas are insanely hot. People really move to Dallas for the great weather?

Well, to be honest, and fair... Paris, London and Beijing are not as cold as Chicago. They actually have warm autumns, extended summers and winters that see an end in February... Moscow is obviously the exception ;)
I know it's painful to think, but Chicago simply is too cold. Summer is too short, winter too long, and there's no real spring/autumn. I'm fine with this, because I thrive in cold/dry weather, but I understand why most people say "no thank you" to it.

Probably because many people can deal with the hot weather better than they can with the cold weather. I know a person born and raised in Chicago that wanted to move to Dallas and I kept telling her than the summers can be brutal. She didn't care saying she can deal with 95 degree temperature and now 5 degree temperature anymore.

At least Dallas is dry heat, though. Houston is really bad because it's very humid. But the winters are one of the best in the nation.

I dont know, winter in chicago and places up north can totally suck while you are in it. But once its over, you notice that it wasn't so bad. And I hate cold weather more than most, I spent a lot of my time growing up in a tropical country.

Moving just for the weather is a lame excuse imo, there have to be other factors involved. I always joke with my fiance that we should move to Miami or something when it starts getting cold, but I know we probably aren't ever going to leave chicago. We like this city too much to let the cold weather affect us like that.

lol. I love cold weather though. Hell my fam said they would not visit me in the DC area because it gets too cold. They are from Florida, though.

As someone who has lived in Atlanta for 8 years now, I can tell you that the winters here are nothing like they are up north!

The average high temp in Atlanta at the end of January is 51 degrees, and the average low is 34. Snow and/or ice is extremely uncommon, and it's not unusual to have occasional days in the 60s and 70s, even in January. Spring and Fall are absolutely stunning, and Summer is not as hot and humid as many people believe. Yes, July and August can get a bit sticky, but Atlanta's average high in mid-July is only 88 degrees.

As our econmy keeps becoming more and more service oriented and more and more work can be done from a laptop in your bedroom, I think people will continually move to more favorable climates. Especially ones without threat of hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, wildfires, etc..

Ex., Atlanta.

The biggest metros

Here are the nation's largest metropolitan areas — regions centered on one or more cities of at least 50,000 people.

Metro area 2000 pop. 2006 pop. Pct. chg. Metro area 2000 pop. 2006 pop. Pct. chg.

New York 18,323,382 18,818,536 2.7% Boston 4,392,340 4,455,217 1.4%

Los Angeles 12,365,619 12,950,129 4.7% San Francisco-Oakland 4,123,742 4,180,027 1.4%

Chicago 9,098,615 9,505,748 4.5% Phoenix 3,251,876 4,039,182 24.2%

Dallas-Fort Worth 5,161,518 6,003,967 16.3% Riverside, Calif. 3,254,821 4,026,135 23.7%

Philadelphia 5,687,141 5,826,742 2.5% Seattle-Tacoma 3,043,885 3,263,497 7.2%

Houston 4,715,402 5,539,949 17.5% Minneapolis-St. Paul 2,968,817 3,175,041 6.9%

Miami-Dade 5,007,988 5,463,857 9.1% San Diego 2,813,833 2,941,454 4.5%

Washington 4,796,180 5,290,400 10.3% St. Louis 2,698,672 2,796,368 3.6%

Atlanta 4,248,012 5,138,223 21.0% Tampa-St. Petersburg 2,396,013 2,697,731 12.6%

Detroit 4,452,557 4,468,966 0.4%

Can anyone explain the insane growth in DC? 10% compared to 4.5% in Chicago, 4.7% in LA, 1.4% in Boston, and 2.7% in NY. Is it the increase in government jobs since 9/11?

Yes, and also the growth in government contractors. Suburban MD has very strong growth and suburban VA is even stronger. Loudon County, VA was practically rural 10 years ago and now is typical sprawling exurbia.

I like the MD suburbs but I generally dislike the VA suburbs. The rate of growth has (IMO) contributed to a drop in the quality of life in places like Fairfax County, VA. Traffic in Northern VA seems worse than even in LA and the quality of the growth in VA seems to lag that of MD.

^ i agree; VA's burbs seem a lot crappier than MD's (except for Alexandria and Arlington, lol.)

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The climate issue is valid. For instance, it snowed today in NYC!

It's currently 40F in NYC and 48F in ATL. How is that a substantial difference?

Someone who doesn't like the current temp in NYC will not be much happier in ATL.

Really? What about everyone who lives in Canada? They don't seem to mind. Not that they have a Florida, either. ;)

Wow, Crawford, you're really reaching on this weather thing. A freak early-spring cold snap hardly proves that Atlanta and New York have equally "cold" climates. I will say, however, that when I think of a cold, northern climate, NYC really doesn't come to mind. I guess your proximity to the ocean moderates your temps a good bit in the winter.

There will be days this summer when Atlanta will be 85 degrees and NYC will be 90 degrees. Will that be proof that NYC is "hotter" than Atlanta?

The weather card is only a small piece of the story. I spent > 50 years living in the “frozen North” (Chicago, Boston, Edinburgh, Baltimore, etc) before moving to ATL – weather had nothing to do with the move, but now I see the weather as a good reason never to move back North. The “Winters” are just nippy enough to remind you that there is cold out there, but usually just a few days where you have to put on jacket. Summers are hot and humid, but Chicago, Baltimore, etc are hot and humid as well and for some reason the heat and humidity here is more tolerable – air conditioning is seemingly more common, more efficient and one seems to spend less time in that hot and humid air.

I dont think that Climate has much to do with it, for example DC grew faster than Miami or LA. And both Miami and LA had very negative domestic migration patterns. Its more people leaving expensive cities for sprawly cheap cities like Atlanta, Houston & Dallas.

What do the fast growing metros (Pheonix, Atlanta, Houston, Tampa, & Dallas) all have in common? They are cheap for housing compared to other large metros. Its no mystery here folks...

As far as compared to Chicago, I'd say much more moderate climate and coastal influence.