U.S. Census Bureau data released last Thursday showed Queen Creek and Maricopa grew faster than other communities in Arizona over the past year, but that alone doesn’t tell the whole story. do not have.
Queen Creek and Maricopa are among the top 15 nations for population growth from July 1, 2021 to July 1, 2022, according to new statistics from the agency.
However, when producing the rankings, the agency only ranks “major cities,” i.e. cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants.
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%, surpassing both Queen Creek and Maricopa.
The new report also reveals that about one in four Arizona communities have actually lost their population. The biggest loser was the city of Douglas, which lost 4.6% of its population, 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.
According to the Census Bureau, Georgetown, Texas is believed to be the fastest growing city in the past year, at 14.4%. It’s about an hour away from Austin.
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, widened 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 has not only completed the 202 loop through the Southeast Valley, financed mostly by county taxes, but is also currently constructing the 1-mile Route 24 from 202 to Pinal County. extended.
And that’s just the beginning. A new budget signed by Governor 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 has managed to add an additional 4,416 residents for the year ending July 1, 2022, even though the highway is not yet completed. This equates to an increase of approximately 6.7%.
Other communities in and around the Phoenix metropolitan area also experienced significant year-on-year population growth, including 4.6% growth at Casa Grande, 3.8% growth at Goodyear, and a similar increase in the adjacent Buckeye. bottom.
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 the community is available
Land capable of 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 its population to 55,962. But it was enough to record a growth rate of less than 2.4%.
After Douglas, the other community that recorded the greatest population decline was Florence. However, this has been greatly affected by the declining number of prisoners in state-run prisons in recent years.
