Most of the nation is gaining population but the city of Detroit continues to lag and lose people, according to new annual estimates released today from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The city lost 3,541 people from 2015 to 2016, or about a half of a percent. This is similar to the decline last year of 3,573.
Nationally, the year over year growth rate averaged 0.7 percent. If Detroit was keeping pace with the nation, it should have had a population gain of 4,734.
Over six years, Detroit has lost 40,982 people. To give you an idea of scale, that’s almost as if the entire suburban cities of Madison Heights and Rochester together got up and moved away.
The pace of population decline has been basically the same between this year and last.
Historically, the city is more than 1.17 million below the 1950 all time high.
Some large suburbs like Dearborn and Livonia in Wayne County sustained population losses. Sterling Heights and Clinton Township in Macomb County gained. We will update the site with the data of more large Metro Detroit cities as the day goes on.
Later this summer, the Census Bureau will release additional population estimates by age, sex, race and Hispanic origin for the nation, states and counties.
Statewide, population continues to move west, with Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids posting gains. Ann Arbor now boasts not only the title of the most valuable city by real estate in Michigan, but also more than 120,000 people; Grand Rapids at 196,445 is starting to close in on 200,000.
The state itself gained slightly in population, up to 9,928,300 in 2016 from 9,917,715 in 2015.
Nationally, ten cities have more than a million people.
The fastest gainers were in the southern part of the United States. Conroe, Texas (near Houston), was the fastest-growing large city (population of 50,000 or more) between 2015 and 2016 at 7.8 percent, making its growth rate more than 11 times the nation’s growth rate of 0.7 percent.
Some of the other fastest-growing cities were: Frisco, Texas (6.2 percent); McKinney, Texas (5.9 percent); Greenville, S.C. (5.8 percent); and Georgetown, Texas (5.5 percent).
