Resonance Consultancy, which is a placemaking firm that we have spoken about before on the blog, is working on a new America's Best Cities report. And as part of this, they've been surveying Americans about which cities they would most like to live in and visit. The result is a list of the most "desirable" US cities that looks like this:
New York
Miami
Los Angeles
Las Vegas
San Diego
Chicago
Seattle
San Francisco
Houston
Denver
The long and the short of it seems to be that people generally want to live in the places where they like to travel. But what's interesting is that if you look at the US cities that have actually grown the most in absolute numbers over the last few years (specifically April 2020 to July 2023), the list transforms into this:
Dallas (+462,639)
Houston (+360,649)
Phoenix (+219,008)
Atlanta (+200,414)
Austin (+189,896)
Tampa (+167,672)
San Antonio (+145,884)
Charlotte (+144,767)
Orlando (+144,542)
Jacksonville (+107,396)
The only city that shows up on both is Houston.
What this suggests is that cities very much have brands. And when you ask people where they'd ideally like to live, they think of the sexiest ones. Places like New York, Miami, Los Angeles, and so on. But it when it comes to actually moving somewhere and paying for a home, there are clearly other realities to consider -- the most important of which is probably affordability.
The U.S. Census Bureau recently released it’s 2016 city and town population estimates. The press release can be found here.
The headline isn’t a new one. Southern cities continue to grow quickly. This is not a new trend. Humans seem to like warm weather and the housing supply in southern cities tends to be more elastic. This keeps home prices relatively in check and allows the cities to more easily accommodate growth.
From July 2015 to July 2016, 10 of the 15 fastest growing large U.S. cities were in the south (based on % growth). 4 of the top 5 were in Texas.
From 2010 to 2016, the population in large southern cities grew an average of 9.4%. Cities in the west clocked in at 7.3%. And cities in the northeast and midwest were at 1.8% and 3.0%, respectively.
Two outliers near the top are Seattle and Denver. Since 2010, the population of these two cities grew 15.39% and 14.87%, respectively. I’m going to say it’s because of the skiing and snowboarding. Half-joking. For the top 25 large cities ranked by 2010-2016 growth rate, click here.
In terms of absolute humans, Phoenix had the largest numeric increase between 2015 and 2016: 32,113 or about 88 people per day. After Phoenix it’s Los Angeles (27,173), San Antonio (24,473), New York (21,171), and Seattle (20,847). These are all city proper figures.
It’s also worth noting which large cities aren’t growing. From 2015 to 2016, Chicago fell -0.32% and Detroit fell -0.52%. Philadelphia was only slightly positive at 0.19%. Going back to 2010, Chicago is still flat at 0.27% and Detroit is even more negative at -5.39%. Philadelphia is 2.5%.
Follow the sun and the sprawl.
The below charts are from the United States Census Bureau.
