The two suburban cities of Phoenix have grown at a faster pace than any other Arizona community in the past year.

In fact, Queen Creek and Maricopa are among the top 15 cities in the nation for population growth one year from July 1, 2021, according to new statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday.

However, this doesn’t tell the whole story.

Federal agencies rank only what they consider to be “large cities” when creating their rankings. And that means over 50,000 residents.

But a closer look reveals that Coolidge has been boosted by new factories and economic development, with a one-year population change rate of 11.9%, outpacing both of these cities.

The new report also reveals that about one in four Arizona communities have actually lost their population. And the biggest loser was the city of Douglas, which lost 4.6% of its population, according to Census Bureau statistics, bringing the city’s population below 16,000, effectively returning it to its early-century state.

Much of the content of the new national report is not surprising. The fastest growing communities tend to be on the edge of existing cities.

And most of them are in the South or West, on the edge of metropolitan areas, like Queen Creek and Maricopa.
Consider Georgetown, Texas, which the Census Bureau considers to have grown the fastest in percentage terms over the past year, at 14.4%. It’s about an hour away from Austin.

Kyle and Leander, Texas, which tied for third and fourth place with 10.9% year-over-year growth, are also located outside Austin.

And Santa Cruz, California, in second place with 12.5%, benefits from its location south of San Jose and Silicon Valley.

The same is true in Arizona.

A few decades ago, it was communities like Glendale and Mesa that grew by leaps and bounds. These communities quickly filled up.

At the same time, additional highways were built, expanded and extended. And this has reduced commute times to acceptable levels for those who need to travel to major cities for work, encouraging them to live further afield.
Queen Creek is a prime example of that.

The state, financed mostly by county taxes, not only completed the 202 loop through the valley to the southeast, but also built and extended State Route 24, now a mile from 202 to Pinal. ing. county.

And that’s just the beginning. A new budget signed by Gov. Katie Hobbs earlier this month gives the city of Queen Creek $87.5 million for further expansion of SR 24, including the Ironwood Road transit interchange.

Queen Creek was able to add an additional 4,416 residents in the year ending July 1, 2022, even though the highway is not yet completed. This represents an increase of nearly 6.7%.

Maricopa was not far behind, with 3,844 new residents, an increase of nearly 6.2%.

The perimeter of the Phoenix area and beyond also saw significant year-over-year population growth, with Casa Grande growing 4.6%, Goodyear growing 3.8%, and the adjacent Buckeye growing about the same.
Wickenberg and Surprise also achieved growth of over 3%.

Coolidge can also be said to be located on the periphery of Phoenix. But that growth has been underpinned by a number of new economic developments.

There is still more to come.

Last November, for example, Procter & Gamble announced a $500 million investment in a manufacturing facility.

And this community has land that can be used for both industry and housing.

The growth pattern at the urban edge is repeated around Tucson, albeit to a much lesser extent.
According to the Census Bureau, Marana added an additional 1,290 residents in one year, bringing the population to 55,962. But it was enough to record a growth rate of less than 2.4%.

And Sahuarita’s record was less than 1.2%. By comparison, Tucson itself came close to his 1% mark but fell short of breaking through.

After Douglas, the other community that recorded the greatest population decline was Florence. However, this is largely influenced by the number of prisoners in state-run prisons, which has declined in recent years.