As promised, here are the 2015 metro area population estimates for Columbus and its regional and national peers.
2015 Metro Population Estimates Chicago, IL: 9,551,031 Detroit, MI: 4,302,043 Minneapolis, MN: 3,524,583 St. Louis, MO: 2,811,588 Charlotte, NC: 2,426,363 Portland, OR: 2,389,228 Orlando, FL: 2,387,138 San Antonio, TX: 2,384,075 Pittsburgh, PA: 2,353,045 Sacramento, CA: 2,274,194 Cincinnati: 2,157,719 Las Vegas, NV: 2,114,801 Kansas City, MO: 2,087,471 Cleveland: 2,060,810 Columbus: 2,021,632 Austin, TX: 2,000,860 Indianapolis: 1,988,817 San Jose, CA: 1,976,836 Nashville, TN: 1,830,345 Virginia Beach, VA: 1,724,876 Providence, RI: 1,613,070 Milwaukee, WI: 1,575,747 Grand Rapids, MI: 1,038,583 Omaha, NE: 915,312 Dayton: 800,909 Akron: 704,243 Toledo: 605,956 Youngstown: 549,885
Components of Metro Area Population Change As you can see, while Columbus has a middle of the road birth rate for its peers, its relatively low death rate means that it manages to be near the top of the its peer group in natural growth.
It seems that while international migration is competitive with peers in the Columbus metro, domestic migration would need to improve to truly be at the upper peer level. At the very least, it is positive.
The US Census released the latest population estimates for metropolitan/micropolitan areas as well as counties for the year July 1, 2012 to July 1, 2013. Here is what they found for Columbus and Ohio metros.
Columbus leads the pack, and by a lot. Some interesting notes about these numbers is that half of the 8 major metros are growing. Also of significance is that Cleveland barely lost at all, which may indicate that the losses there are slowing down.
Now let’s take a look at where the population changes for these metros are coming from.
Natural growth is a vital part of the growth picture for any place. For Columbus, it is roughly 50% of it’s total annual growth. For places like Youngstown, with more deaths than births, it just contributes to overall decline.
The 2nd most important part of the growth rate, migration, is also pretty bad for most metros. Only Columbus is seeing a decent rate of growth, particularly domestically.
One final question is… how are these metro growth rates changing over time? That’s a bit harder to answer, as metro boundaries change so often that it’s more difficult to determine comparable rates decade to decade. However, this is what I came up with.
