Lavon Lake at sunrise from Ticky Creek Park in Princeton, Texas.
Photo by Trong Nguyen: Getty Images
We take a quick look at which fastest-growing communities are attracting company investments in addition to people.
If you haven’t yet studied the newest Census Bureau analysis of the nation’s metro-area and city/town demographics, it’s time to add these two reports to your summer reading list.
Princeton, Texas, a Dallas suburb that was the fastest-growing city or town in the nation in 2024, increased its population by nearly one-third in just one year and has more than doubled it since 2020, from roughly 17,000 to 37,000. Since April 2020 the fastest-growing incorporated city or town is Forney, Texas, whose population grew by 64.2% between April 2020 and July 2024 to 38,572. The city, part of the second-fastest-growing county in the nation in Kaufman County, has more than 25,000 future residential lots planned for a location 21 miles from Dallas along I-20 and U.S. Highway 80. The area claims a workforce of 1.3 million within a 35-minute commute.
Every single one of the 10 projects in Forney that have qualified for Site Selection’s Conway Projects Database over the past decade has been a logistics facility, including a 294,000-sq.-ft. distribution center from Dallas-based Economy Tire announced in April and a 43,000-sq.-ft. facility from Ohio-based HVAC equipment company Copeland announced in late 2024. Other major investments have come from such companies as Goodyear and Amazon, whose multiple projects there included a 1-million-sq.-ft. center that opened exactly four years ago this month.
Go down the list of fastest-growing towns and cities and several outpace Forney in terms of company projects if not population. No. 2 Hutto, Texas, for example, located in the Austin area, has 22 projects in the Conway Projects Database, including a $500 million data center coming from Colovore and a 30-job expansion in the semiconductor industry from Fine SemiTech USA Corp. As reported by connectCRE, the Ironwood Tract industrial park where Colovore is locating is 10 miles west of Samsung Electronics’ expanding campus and 20 miles north of Tesla’s gigafactory in eastern Travis County.
All told, the top 20 towns and cities by population growth since April 1, 2020, account for 271 projects in Site Selection’s database, with Georgetown, Texas (56 projects), Lebanon, Tennessee (29) and Kyle, Texas (22) leading the way. Georgetown, essentially the next concentric circle of Austin’s growth to the north past Pflugerville and Hutto, is the only city or town in the top 20 whose population surpasses 100,000.
No. 20, with zero projects, is the Satmar Hasidic community of Kiryas Joel in Orange County, New York, known for its large families. The only other top 20 city or town with zero projects is Saratoga Springs, Utah, a former resort along Utah Lake on the Wasatch Front that was not incorporated until 1997. Expected to achieve over 120,000 in population at build-out, the community’s planning calls for commercial and office development as well as “large research and development properties.”
Cumulative Estimates of Resident Population Change for Incorporated Places of 20,000 or More in 2020, Ranked by Percent Change: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2024
| Rank | Community | Population Estimate | Change, 2020 to 2024 | Projects Since 2015 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 1, 2020 | July 1, 2024 | Number | Percent | |||
| 1 | Forney city, Texas | 23493 | 38572 | 15079 | 64.2 | 10 |
| 2 | Hutto city, Texas | 27586 | 42661 | 15075 | 54.6 | 22 |
| 3 | Haines City city, Florida | 27540 | 42073 | 14533 | 52.8 | 1 |
| 4 | Saratoga Springs city, Utah | 37702 | 57411 | 19709 | 52.3 | 0 |
| 5 | Georgetown city, Texas | 67423 | 101344 | 33921 | 50.3 | 56 |
| 6 | Leander city, Texas | 59212 | 87511 | 28299 | 47.8 | 14 |
| 7 | Fort Mill town, South Carolina | 24529 | 36244 | 11715 | 47.8 | 18 |
| 8 | Prosper town, Texas | 30166 | 44503 | 14337 | 47.5 | 3 |
| 9 | Leland town, North Carolina | 23377 | 34451 | 11074 | 47.4 | 13 |
| 10 | Kyle city, Texas | 45683 | 65833 | 20150 | 44.1 | 29 |
| 11 | Waukee city, Iowa | 23949 | 34420 | 10471 | 43.7 | 5 |
| 12 | Lathrop city, California | 28730 | 40860 | 12130 | 42.2 | 13 |
| 13 | Queen Creek town, Arizona | 59489 | 83781 | 24292 | 40.8 | 4 |
| 14 | Leesburg city, Florida | 27011 | 37815 | 10804 | 40 | 2 |
| 15 | Eagle Mountain city, Utah | 43620 | 60575 | 16955 | 38.9 | 4 |
| 16 | Foley city, Alabama | 20622 | 28043 | 7421 | 36 | 5 |
| 17 | Westfield city, Indiana | 46446 | 62994 | 16548 | 35.6 | 19 |
| 18 | Fuquay-Varina town, North Carolina | 34265 | 46317 | 12052 | 35.2 | 8 |
| 19 | Lebanon city, Tennessee | 38486 | 51501 | 13015 | 33.8 | 45 |
| 20 | Kiryas Joel village, New York | 32960 | 43863 | 10903 | 33.1 | 0 |
The Census Bureau in March reported that all of the nation’s 387 metro areas had positive net international migration between 2023 and 2024, and it accounted for nearly 2.7 million of the total population gain in metro areas — up from 2.2 million between 2022 and 2023. A few other facts from the Bureau’s two releases in March and May:
- Between 2023 and 2024, the number of people living in a U.S. metro area increased by nearly 3.2 million (or around 1.1%) to 293.9 million. In comparison, the total U.S. population increased by nearly 1% to more than 340 million people. In 2024, 86.4% of the U.S. population lived in metro areas.
- Two cities crossed the 1 million-population threshold between 2023 and 2024 — Jacksonville, Florida (1,009,833), and Fort Worth, Texas (1,008,106). For site seekers with other metrics in mind, seven cities crossed the 100,000-population threshold, with five of them in the South: Deltona, Florida (100,513); Plantation, Florida (100,694); Sunrise, Florida (100,128); Georgetown, Texas (101,344); and San Angelo, Texas (100,159). The two others are Tracy, California (100,136), and Federal Way, Washington (100,252).
- “The United States continues to be a nation of small towns. In 2024, 75 percent of its 19,479 incorporated places — 14,603 cities — had populations under 5,000. Only 4.2% (817 cities) had populations of 50,000 or more, and 1.8% (342 cities) had populations of 100,000 or more.”
- Idaho experienced the nation’s fastest growth in housing units, with an increase of 2.2% between 2023 and 2024, followed by Utah at 2% and North Carolina at 1.9%. At the county level, Jasper County, South Carolina, was the nation’s fastest-growing county in terms of housing units: its housing stock increased by 8.4% between 2023 and 2024, followed by Brunswick County, North Carolina (6.4%); Burnet County, Texas (6.3%); Caldwell County, Texas (5.7%); and Custer County, South Dakota (5.4%).
- “Some metro areas that experienced population declines earlier in the decade, such as New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ, Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV, and San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA, experienced population gains from 2023 to 2024.” Cities and towns reflected the same pattern.
- New York City topped the list of largest numeric gainers among metros with an increase of 87,184 residents between 2023 and 2024. The top five numeric gainers included three from Texas, with the relatively small metros of San Antonio and Fort Worth at Nos. 4 and 5 in the nation. Here are the metro areas and their respective population gains: Houston, Texas (43,217); Los Angeles, California (31,276); San Antonio, Texas (23,945); and Fort Worth, Texas (23,442).
- Washington, D.C., added almost 15,000 residents in 2024, nearly doubling its population gain in 2023. (Could that change? A Washington Post-Schar School poll last month indicated that 45% of families affected by DOGE layoffs are considering leaving the D.C. area.)
- Nine of the 10 largest-gaining counties were located in large metro areas in the South and West. Of the 10 fastest-growing metro areas between 2023 and 2024, nine were in the South, while one was in the West, with the two fastest growing being located in Florida. Seven of the 10 fastest-growing micropolitan areas were in the South, with the two fastest growing over the period located in Georgia and Florida.
- Northeast cities with populations of 50,000 or more saw 1% average population growth in 2024 — five times higher than their growth rate during 2023.
When cross-referenced with Site Selection’s Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 Top Metros of 2024, the Top Micropolitans of 2024, the Mac Conway Award honorees for regional economic development excellence and the forthcoming “America’s Best Counties” rankings in the publication’s July issue (see last year’s rankings here), the tables below can reveal where growth in people and growth in job opportunities are aligned, and where there may be opportunities to align them better. —Adam Bruns
Top 10 Counties by Numeric Growth: July 1, 2023, to July 1, 2024
| Rank | State | County | April 1, 2020 (Estimates Base) | July 1, 2023 | July 1, 2024 | Numeric Growth |
| Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2024 Population Estimates. | ||||||
| 1 | Texas | Harris County | 4,731,433 | 4,903,450 | 5,009,302 | 105,852 |
| 2 | Florida | Miami-Dade County | 2,701,751 | 2,774,250 | 2,838,461 | 64,211 |
| 3 | Arizona | Maricopa County | 4,425,315 | 4,615,625 | 4,673,096 | 57,471 |
| 4 | Texas | Collin County | 1,066,331 | 1,207,964 | 1,254,658 | 46,694 |
| 5 | Nevada | Clark County | 2,266,452 | 2,354,285 | 2,398,871 | 44,586 |
| 6 | Washington | King County | 2,269,666 | 2,296,813 | 2,340,211 | 43,398 |
| 7 | Illinois | Cook County | 5,278,969 | 5,142,522 | 5,182,617 | 40,095 |
| 8 | Florida | Broward County | 1,944,404 | 2,002,786 | 2,037,472 | 34,686 |
| 9 | Texas | Montgomery County | 620,567 | 715,345 | 749,613 | 34,268 |
| 10 | Texas | Tarrant County | 2,110,999 | 2,197,915 | 2,230,708 | 32,793 |
Top 10 Counties by Percent Growth: July 1, 2023, to July 1, 2024
Resident Population of 20,000 or More in 2023 and 2024
| Rank | State | County | April 1, 2020 (Estimates Base) | July 1, 2023 | July 1, 2024 | Numeric Growth |
| Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2024 Population Estimates. | ||||||
| 1 | Georgia | Dawson County | 26,797 | 31,720 | 33,748 | 6.4% |
| 2 | Texas | Kaufman County | 145,330 | 186,715 | 197,829 | 6.0% |
| 3 | South Carolina | Jasper County | 28,805 | 33,642 | 35,618 | 5.9% |
| 4 | Georgia | Jackson County | 75,918 | 88,723 | 93,825 | 5.8% |
| 5 | Arizona | Pinal County | 426,007 | 486,395 | 513,862 | 5.6% |
| 6 | Texas | Liberty County | 91,658 | 109,172 | 115,042 | 5.4% |
| 7 | Texas | Montgomery County | 620,567 | 715,345 | 749,613 | 4.8% |
| 8 | Florida | Osceola County | 388,661 | 447,243 | 468,058 | 4.7% |
| 9 | Texas | Caldwell County | 45,879 | 50,107 | 52,430 | 4.6% |
| 10 | Florida | Hendry County | 39,619 | 44,111 | 46,130 | 4.6% |
Top 10 U.S. Metro Areas by Percent Growth: July 1, 2023, to July 1, 2024
| Rank | Metro Area | April 1, 2020 (Estimates Base) | July 1, 2023 | July 1, 2024 | Percent Growth |
| Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2024 Population Estimates. | |||||
| 1 | Ocala, FL | 375,902 | 412,338 | 428,905 | 4.0% |
| 2 | Panama City-Panama City Beach, FL | 200,521 | 217,967 | 226,221 | 3.8% |
| 3 | Myrtle Beach-Conway-North Myrtle Beach, SC | 351,038 | 398,374 | 413,391 | 3.8% |
| 4 | Lakeland-Winter Haven, FL | 725,036 | 824,172 | 852,878 | 3.5% |
| 5 | Provo-Orem-Lehi, UT | 671,181 | 738,375 | 760,531 | 3.0% |
| 6 | Daphne-Fairhope-Foley, AL | 231,767 | 254,107 | 261,608 | 3.0% |
| 7 | Port St. Lucie, FL | 487,654 | 540,427 | 556,336 | 2.9% |
| 8 | Midland, TX | 175,587 | 183,557 | 188,766 | 2.8% |
| 9 | Odessa, TX | 165,182 | 165,450 | 170,022 | 2.8% |
| 10 | Spartanburg, SC | 355,237 | 385,441 | 395,934 | 2.7% |
Top 10 U.S. Micro Areas by Numeric Growth: July 1, 2023, to July 1, 2024
| Rank | Micro Area | April 1, 2020 (Estimates Base) | July 1, 2023 | July 1, 2024 | Numeric Growth |
| Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2024 Population Estimates. | |||||
| 1 | Seaford, DE | 237,390 | 263,975 | 271,134 | 7,159 |
| 2 | Jefferson, GA | 75,918 | 88,723 | 93,825 | 5,102 |
| 3 | Anderson Creek, NC | 133,556 | 141,792 | 146,096 | 4,304 |
| 4 | Clewiston, FL | 51,745 | 56,950 | 59,262 | 2,312 |
| 5 | Richmond-Berea, KY | 122,902 | 127,707 | 129,810 | 2,103 |
| 6 | Hilo-Kailua, HI | 200,629 | 208,043 | 209,790 | 1,747 |
| 7 | Hobbs, NM | 74,457 | 73,503 | 75,151 | 1,648 |
| 8 | Moses Lake, WA | 99,125 | 103,088 | 104,717 | 1,629 |
| 9 | Cookeville, TN | 141,331 | 148,351 | 149,929 | 1,578 |
| 10 | Albemarle, NC | 62,502 | 65,818 | 67,326 | 1,508 |
Top 10 U.S. Micro Areas by Percent Growth: July 1, 2023, to July 1, 2024
| Rank | Micro Area | April 1, 2020 (Estimates Base) | July 1, 2023 | July 1, 2024 | Numeric Growth |
| Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2024 Population Estimates. | |||||
| 1 | Jefferson, GA | 75,918 | 88,723 | 93,825 | 5.8% |
| 2 | Clewiston, FL | 51,745 | 56,950 | 59,262 | 4.1% |
| 3 | Williston, ND | 40,951 | 39,304 | 40,763 | 3.7% |
| 4 | Anderson Creek, NC | 133,556 | 141,792 | 146,096 | 3.0% |
| 5 | Seaford, DE | 237,390 | 263,975 | 271,134 | 2.7% |
| 6 | Spearfish, SD | 25,776 | 28,106 | 28,809 | 2.5% |
| 7 | Sandpoint, ID | 47,109 | 52,709 | 53,955 | 2.4% |
| 8 | Albemarle, NC | 62,502 | 65,818 | 67,326 | 2.3% |
| 9 | Lewisburg, TN | 34,322 | 37,008 | 37,847 | 2.3% |
| 10 | McMinnville, TN | 40,950 | 42,655 | 43,619 | 2.3% |
The 15 Fastest-Growing Cities and Towns Between July 1, 2023, and July 1, 2024, With Populations of 20,000 or More as of July 1, 2023
| Rank | Area Name | State Name | Percent Increase | 2024 Total Population |
| 1 | Princeton city | Texas | 30.6 | 37,019 |
| 2 | Fulshear city | Texas | 26.9 | 54,629 |
| 3 | Leesburg city | Florida | 18.5 | 37,815 |
| 4 | Celina city | Texas | 18.2 | 51,661 |
| 5 | Anna city | Texas | 14.6 | 31,986 |
| 6 | Haines City city | Florida | 12.1 | 42,073 |
| 7 | Foley city | Alabama | 12.0 | 28,043 |
| 8 | Fate city | Texas | 11.4 | 27,467 |
| 9 | Rosemount city | Minnesota | 10.6 | 30,581 |
| 10 | Garner town | North Carolina | 10.4 | 39,345 |
| 11 | Melissa city | Texas | 10.0 | 26,194 |
| 12 | Sugar Hill city | Georgia | 9.5 | 28,598 |
| 13 | Hutto city | Texas | 9.4 | 42,661 |
| 14 | Leland town | North Carolina | 9.4 | 34,451 |
| 15 | Erie town | Colorado | 9.2 | 38,594 |
| Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2024 Population Estimates | ||||
| Release Date: May 2025 | ||||
