GEORGETOWN, Texas (KXAN) — Georgetown and Leander are the two fastest-growing cities in the nation, new data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows.
Between July 1, 2020 and July 1, 2021, Georgetown’s population increased by 10.5%, while Leander’s increased by 10.1%.
No other city in the country with a population of more than 50,000 grew by more than 10%.
“It’s exciting and frightening all at the same time. You know, it’s one of those distinctions that might be nice to be 15, 17, somewhere around there. But number one is a pretty scary distinction,” Georgetown Mayor Josh Schroeder told KXAN’s Tom Miller. “It obviously means that there are lots of issues that we have to address and continue to work on that come with growth.”
The city’s population grew by almost 42% between the 2010 and 2020 census, from 47,400 to more than 67,000. It’s now more than 75,000.
“You can never say that you’re fully prepared, because if you had been planning and building based upon these projected growth numbers three to five years ago, people would have said you were crazy that you would never see growth like this,” Schroeder said. “So it’s always difficult to stay ahead of it. But it really just comes down to infrastructure and making sure that you’ve got the roads, the water, the electric, the wastewater and then the public safety.”
New Braunfels ranked as fifth-fastest-growing, increasing by 8.3%. Several suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona also made the top 10 list.
Meanwhile, multiple cities in the Bay Area and the New York metro feature among the fastest declining. San Francisco lead the way with a population decrease of 6.3% between July 2020 and July 2021.
When it comes to raw numbers, Texas is home to eight of the 15 fastest-growing cities with San Antonio out front. The city added 13,626 new residents between July 2020 and July 2021, more than any other city in the country.
Fort Worth, Frisco, New Braunfels, Georgetown, Leander, Denton and McKinney also appear in the top 15. Austin, which ranked as third-fastest-growing between 2018 and 2019, did not make the top 15 this year.
Dallas and Houston both appear in the top 10 fastest-declining cities in terms of raw numbers. Houston lost 11,777 residents between July 2020 and July 2021, while Dallas’ population dropped by 14,777.
Several of the nation’s largest cities also feature in the top 10 list, including New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington and Boston.
While the city-level data is new, the Census Bureau released county statistics back in March. That data showed Hays and Williamson Counties both appeared in the top 10 fastest-growing counties in the state. Both saw an increase in population of more than 5% between 2020 and 2021.
Kaufman County, southeast of Dallas, grew at the fastest rate of any county in the state — 8.57%, adding 12,458 new residents between 2020 and 2021. When looking at raw numbers, Collin County, north of Dallas, had the largest population increase with almost 45,000 new residents.