It’s been a while since we’ve seen a “Mike and Mike” stats video from the Atlanta Regional Commission talking about population trends around Atlanta.

But if you’re a stats geek with a healthy love of Atlanta, it was worth the wait.  Mike and Mike go through the latest population growth trends throughout the metro focusing on the overarching trend that while population growth of 52,700 new residents between April 2013 and April 2014 is the largest increase since the Recession, it also doesn’t compare to the influx of new Atlanta residents in the 1990s and 2000s.

Mike and Mike’s charts show that the largest counties Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb and DeKalb added the most new residents. Not surprising, but what’s really interesting is the more urban skew of new residents.  A couple of items not pointed out in the video above…

• While Gwinnett still held the top spot of average growth from 2010-2014, it’s levels are much lower than previous pre-recession levels.  In most recent years, Fulton is now actually surpassing Gwinnett again in population growth.
• You can also see the urban trend in the City of Atlanta data.  While all the individual 10 metro counties have registered declines since the housing bubble popped, the city of Atlanta is now registering a population increase that surpass five of the 10 metro counties (Henry, Douglas, Fayette, Rockdale, and Clayton).

That’s just a quick look.  If you’ve already watched the video and still want to dig deeper, check out this snapshot, the full presentation or their press release – which has lots of these links.

The Census Bureau released some new metropolitan area data this past week showing that as of July 2013, Atlanta was still the 9th largest metropolitan area in the United States with a population of 5.5 million residents, roughly 300,000 residents smaller than #8 Miami.  (Here’s the relevant PDF)

Atlanta ranked as high as #8 in 2008, but was surpassed by steadier growth in D.C. metro area in 2010.

In terms of absolute growth, Atlanta registered the 7th largest population gain of any U.S. metro area, growing by 68,513 residents.  Other Top 10 metros with Top 10 absolute growth included Texas towns Houston (#1) and Dallas (#3), NYC (#2), L.A (#4)., D.C. (#5) and Miami (#8).  Pheonix registered the 6th largest increase, while hipster havens San Francisco and Seattle rounded out the Top 10.

Photo courtesy of brendanlim via Flickr

Some top line bullets from the AJC’s parsing of Atlanta’s 2005-2009 Census SURVEY data that was recently release to the viewing public.  This ISN’T the 2010 Census, which is scheduled to be released a week from now.

• “…median income in the city rose from $34,770 to $50,243, a 54 percent increase. At the same time, the percentage of city residents with at least a bachelor’s degree increased by one-third, to 46 percent.”
• “For the metro region as a whole, the percentage of Hispanic or Latino residents increased 43 percent between the 2000 Census and the latest numbers, which cover the period 2005-2009.”
• “Although 21 percent of Atlanta residents lived in poverty during the period 2005-2009, that was a 14 percent decrease from the 2000 census.”
• “The number of white residents rose by 30 percent, eclipsing even the 18 percent increase in the number of people of Hispanic origin. The number of black residents fell by 18 percent.”

Looks like Atlanta got just a little too comfortable in its #8 spot among the cities largest metro areas.

In what is barely receiving a mention in ATL’s major dailies, Atlanta was upset by Washington D.C. in the latest Census estimates, with the District of Columbia registering a mere 1,000 more people than “the city too busy to care about urban planning”.  The stealth estimating maneuver by the nation’s capitol knocked the city formerly known as Marthasville back into the #9 slot.

And instead of linking you to a ridiculous Excel doc, here’s the current Metro Top 10 for 2009.

1. New York City – 19,069,796
2. Los Angeles – 12,874,797
3. Chicago – 9,580,567
4. Dallas-Fort Worth – 6,447,615
5. Philadelphia – 5,968,252
6. Houston – 5,867,489
7. Miami – 5,547,051
8. Washington D.C. – 5,476,241
9. Atlanta – 5,475,213
10. Boston – 4,588,680

More evidence that Decatur residents are on the right side of the population trend (writes the sweaty MARTA commuter)

The AJC reports that the city of Atlanta added 20,623 people to its census from 2006-2007; the seventh largest jump nationwide. According to the article, it’s perhaps the largest population in the city’s history.

On a related note, I noticed that the city of Decatur was quoted with now having just over 19,000 in this recent article about cops in Dunwoody (not sure of the source).

What’s all this mounting evidence show?

Like it or not, Atlanta and Decatur’s populations will continue to grow as people begin to feel the pinch from an unsustainable lifestyle in the ‘burbs. Some will inevitably miss the “small town feel” that the city once had, but in my humble opinion this nationwide transition is inevitable. City policies have done their best to make sure that Decatur handled this influx in a way that maintained a walkable, well thought-out community. But sometimes it seems like the policies that get blamed for our growing population. We can pretend like real estate values haven’t skyrocketed in the past 5 years and lament what’s been lost, blaming it all on the catch-all “city”. Or we can recognize and embrace this transition, making sure we have a say in how we handle this new popularity.

Just my two cents.