The News: Metro Atlanta isn’t growing like kudzu, but it did post it’s second-highest year of growth since the great recession of 2008 this year. The metro area is growing to the tune of about 75,800 residents since April 2017. As a point of reference, the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium seats 71,000 for Falcons games.
The Source: The Atlanta Regional Commission released a report on the 10-county Atlanta region’s growth from April 2017 to April 2018 last week. You can wade through the entire report and presentation here.
The Numbers: While the counties closest to Atlanta are adding the highest number of residents, the outer suburbs are experiencing the highest rate of growth. Cherokee County, to the North, grew by 19 percent. To the South, Henry County grew by 15 percent.
Not all growth is in the suburbs though. After losing population between 1970 and 2000, the city of Atlanta welcomed 10,100 residents and has grown 9 percent since 2010.
TOO MANY ADS? GO AD-FREE
Did You Know?: The ads you see on this site help pay for our website and our work. However, we know some of our readers would rather pay and not see ads. For those users we offer a paid newsletter that contains our articles with no ads.
What You Get: A daily email digest of our articles in full-text with no ads.
Fulton County saw the highest number of new residents this year, adding 17,570 new residents. Gwinnett County had the second-highest number of new residents with 16,700.
The entire region grew 1.7 percent, making the total population of the Atlanta Metropolitan area 4,555,900. That’s 4.55 million for those of you who aren’t good with big numbers.
The Counties: So just which counties make up the 10-county region? Below is ARC’s growth chart, which lists each county and the city of Atlanta along with their numbers. Here you can find out which counties are included and how much they grew.
The Reason: The ARC attributes the metro area’s growth to job growth in the region and notes that the 29-county Metropolitan Statistical Area added more than 41,000 jobs between April 2017 and April 2018, the ninth-most in the nation during that time.
Scale: With more than 4.5 million residents, metro Atlanta’s population is greater than the population of 25 states.
