Michigan cities absent from list of fastest-growing areas

This is according to a recent report from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which analyzed data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and the U.S. Census Bureau to list the top 35 metropolitan areas.

James Hohman, director of fiscal policy for the center, said in the report that state officials should reassess their current strategy and take note of the cities and states that are seeing massive population growth.

“Michigan’s population has been stuck in the same spot for a generation, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer wants to change that,” Hohman said. “They should start by looking at the places around the country that are growing and notice that they are not the ones you might expect.”

The three fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the country were Panama City (Florida) at 28%, Spartanburg (South Carolina) at 23%, and The Villages (Florida) at 23%.

While that list looked at percentages, the report also compared areas by raw numbers of population growth. No Michigan city made that list either.

Instead, Texas, Arizona, and Florida cities took the top spots.

The Mackinac report argued that, while certain policies can affect population growth, ultimately there is a limit to how much politicians can control it.

“Policymakers should be humble about what they can do to foster population growth. We live in a country of 340 million and growing, and people get to figure out for themselves where they are going to live. They’re not following the direction of state lawmakers,” it stated. “Lawmakers ought to recognize that population growth is emergent. It is the result of millions of people making decisions to serve their own interests. Better policies . . . can help. But politicians do not command their regions to grow.”

This is important as, in 2023, Whitmer launched the Growing Michigan Together Council to address Michigan’s population stagnation.

At the end of 2023, the council released a report with its findings and recommendations.

“Michigan’s population struggles are not new. Decades of apathy, structural deficiencies, and the lack of political cohesion have brought us to this point,” the report stated. “It’s clear that population decline and its contributing factors are a significant threat to our state’s future prosperity and well-being. We find ourselves in an unfolding crisis and must act now.”

In 2024, the Michigan Economic Development Corp. instituted Michigan’s Growth Office, which was designed to implement the council’s recommendations. That office allocated $45.5 million to “support talent and growth efforts” all with the goal of furthering “Michigan’s population growth efforts.”

Hohman told The Center Square that Michigan should take note of how the top metropolitan areas are, or are not, encouraging population growth.

“Policymakers tend to think that they know what is going to attract people from around the country,” he said. “The list of the successful areas ought to get them to reassess their beliefs.”

Michigan’s population has long been a concern for policymakers in the state. Since the 2010 Census, Michigan’s population grew by just 2%, snagging the spot for the second-slowest growing state in the country in that decade.

While an ongoing problem, it was exacerbated over 2020 and 2021.

In 2020, there was a slight decline in population in the state. Yet, it looked bleakest in 2021 when the state reported a net loss of 31,000, largely driven by domestic migration out of Michigan.

Migration wasn’t only out of the state though, which is even worse news for Michigan’s metropolitan areas. Even for the Michiganders who stayed in the state, many moved to rural counties in the wake of the pandemic.

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The latest census data was little relief on the population front, as previously reported by The Center Square.

The 2024 data found that, while Michigan had a gain in population over the past year, it was driven by international migration. Even in 2024 with 0.6% total population growth year-over-year, Michigan’s population was still growing slower than the national average of 1%.