Nation's Fastest-Growing Cities

According to recent data released from the U.S. Census Bureau, the nation’s fastest-growing cities are all clustered together. In only two states, actually. Do you think North Carolina is one of them? Read on to find out. 

Thanks in large part to the Covid-19 pandemic and people changing their living arrangements, smaller suburbs of larger cities saw the biggest changes. Namely, certain cities in Texas and Arizona experienced rapid growth. Austin, TX and Phoenix, AZ grew, as Realtor.com puts it, “at the fastest clip in the country.” 

Because of the newfound ability to work remotely, people are leaving more expensive markets for the South and Southwest. What this effectively does, though, is make these growing cities the new ‘more expensive markets’. For example, Georgetown, TX (a suburb just north of Austin) saw a nearly 11% population boom which caused median home prices to shoot to $589,500. That’s a 33% jump in just a year. 

Leander, TX, also an Austin suburb, saw almost identical numbers. 

Further West

Two suburbs of Phoenix, AZ also experienced this phenomenon. Queen Creek Town, AZ and Buckeye, AZ saw between 8-9% population gains within the year which caused their housing prices to jump to roughly $740,000 and $485,000 respectively. 

The remaining list of 15 has other Texas and Arizona towns, as well as a few from Florida, Tennessee, and Idaho. 

On the flip side, the nation’s largest cities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles all lost record numbers of residents. However, they are so large to begin with that even with over 300,000 people leaving NYC, it’s still the nation’s largest city by a mile. 

Take comfort in the fact that no North Carolina city is on either list.