COLUMBUS – Columbus put on a surge of growth last year to remain the 14th-largest city in the nation, even as faster-growing Fort Worth, Texas, overtook Indianapolis at No. 15 and rode hard on the Ohio capital’s heels.
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The Census Bureau released new population estimates for cities, villages and townships across the United States Thursday, and that’s one of the stories the numbers tell.
In Ohio, the numbers also show continued growth for central Ohio communities. Seven of the state’s fastest-growing cities are in Franklin County or an adjoining county, and five of them are mostly within in Franklin County. Among cities, Canal Winchester showed the fastest growth in the state from 2016 to 2017 at 4.4 percent, followed by Dublin with a 4.3 percent growth rate.
Columbus, with its growth rate of 1.8 percent, added the most people in Ohio: 15,429 more people now call Columbus home, the Census estimated, for a total population of 879,170. It was the fastest growth Columbus has posted since at least 2000, according to Census estimates.
And it was enough to maintain the No. 14 ranking Columbus first achieved in 2016. For now.
Fort Worth is among a group of Texas cities specifically, and southern and southwestern cities in general, that are the fastest growing in the nation. Its 2.2 percent growth rate puts it on a path to surpass Columbus in a few years. Among all U.S. cities, it had the fourth-largest gain in population: 18,664. Fort Worth is about 5,000 residents shy of surpassing Columbus.
“I think nationally, looking at regions or mega regions, we see a lot of growth occurring in the south and the southwest,” said Aaron Schill, director of regional data and mapping at the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission. “The increasing growth rate for Columbus shows, I think, positive trends for the Great Lakes and Midwest in general.”
As long as Columbus remains an economically attractive, growing city in the top 20-largest in the nation, people here shouldn’t worry whether we’re No. 14 or 15, said Bill LaFayette, an economist at Columbus-based Regionomics.