Austin Business Journals reports, "for the second year in a row, a city in Williamson County was estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau to be the fastest-growing city in the country. It was one of three Austin-area cities that ranked among the top four.
Georgetown reached a 2022 population estimate of 86,507. That's a 14.4% year-over-year increase, according to a May 18 release from the U.S. Census Bureau. That ranked just ahead of Santa Cruz, California (61,800, +12.5%), Kyle (57,470, +10.9%) and Leander (74,375, +10.9%) among cities with a population of at least 50,000 people.
"Job growth in Georgetown and across the Austin metro continues to bring new residents to our city," Georgetown Mayor Josh Schroeder said in a May 18 statement. "People are moving here for the same reasons that brought many of us to Georgetown — wonderful and safe neighborhoods, fantastic parks and events, and welcoming people. We continue to adjust our plans and build new infrastructure to maintain the great quality of life for all of us who are proud to call Georgetown our home.”
Those statistics were part of a larger continued shift of population to the U.S. South – and specifically Texas, which was the fastest-growing state in the country and surpassed the 30 million person mark for the first time last year.
The Austin-area has been a major benefit of that. Austin (974,447 people) this year became the 10th most-populous city in the country, just out-ranking Jacksonville, Florida (971,319) and San Jose, California (971,233), and just behind Dallas (1,299,544), according to the data. Despite that, the Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown Metropolitan Statistical Area still ranks 26th (2,421,115, +6.03% year-over-year increase.)
A closer glance at those number shows how Austin's outskirts are absorbing the bulk of those gains. Data showed that Austin's suburban counties continue to swell at a higher rate than Travis County, which is the biggest of the five-county metro, and saw a 1.4% increase in population from 2021 to 2022. All four of the adjacent counties to Travis saw a larger increase in population during the same time period: Williamson County (4.2%), Hays County (5.1%), Bastrop (3.9%) and Caldwell (2.0%).
That population growth has largely been precipitated by housing developers opting to build in the suburbs, where land is more available and cheaper and the average home price is lower than Travis County. That growth is only expected to continue as industrial developers opt to build large developments near those homes, and tap into the talent pipelines that are emerging in the suburbs.
Williamson County – where Georgetown and Leander are located – is a good example of that. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. is building its massive chipmaking facility in Taylor, while industrial developers have opted more to build speculative developments in cities like Kyle, Lockhart, San Marcos or Georgetown.
Despite that population growth, the Austin area continues to face a number of issues, like affordability, infrastructure and transportation limitations, and more."
Source: Austin Business Journal
Written by: Justin Sayers
Published: May 19, 2023
Posted by Grossman & Jones Group on
Leave A Comment