New York City lost 12,196 people between July 2024 and July 2025. Charlotte, the nation’s 14th largest city, added more residents than any other city in the country, yet still ranks seventh in metro area growth.
Looking at these two data points side by side tells a story buried in the Census Bureau’s vintage 2025 population estimates released on May 14th. The places that attract the most attention are not the most famous. Surrounding them are medium-sized suburbs.
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“Growth in large cities slowed significantly from 2024 to 2025, with some major hubs even seeing small declines,” said Matt Erickson, a statistician in the Census Bureau’s Population Division. “In contrast, mid-sized cities have found a ‘Goldilocks zone’ where a combination of domestic and international migration and new housing has helped stave off the growth slowdown seen in small towns and large urban centres.”
For real estate agents and brokers tracking where demand is moving and where housing stock needs to follow, that Goldilocks zone is where the action is.
Big cities were hit the hardest.
Census data tracks changes in the average population of U.S. cities and towns by size, comparing 2023-2024 and 2024-2025. The pattern is consistent. Every size category experienced a slowdown, but the top decline was the biggest.
Cities with more than 250,000 people added an average of 7,699 residents year over year. In the most recent period, that number dropped to 2,048, a decrease of more than 70%. The growth rate for this segment decreased from 0.9% to 0.3%.
The difference from medium-sized cities with populations of 5,000 to 49,999 is striking. At this stage, each city added an average of 173 residents in the previous year, but in 2024-2025 it will be 121, a decrease of about 30%. The average growth rate was only 0.7 percent, down only slightly from 1 percent.
It does not mean it is immune to economic slowdown, but it is relative resilience.
The same pattern is held regionally as well. In the South, the average growth rate in large cities fell from 1.1% to 0.5%. Midsize cities in the South fell from 1.6 percent to 1.2 percent, but still had the highest growth rate of any city size or region combination in the data. A similar divergence was seen in the Midwest, with large cities dropping from 0.6 percent to 0.4 percent. Medium-sized cities in the Midwest showed little change, ranging from 0.6% to 0.5%.
Texas remains a growth engine
Eight of America’s 15 fastest-growing cities with populations over 20,000 are in Texas. Four of these eight are concentrated in the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro.
Celina, Texas, again led the nation with a 24.6 percent jump to 64,427 residents. It also topped the charts in 2023. Fulshear, a suburb of Houston, followed closely with a growth rate of 21%. Princeton, Melissa and Anna (all Dallas suburbs) also finished in the top five.
All five cities are classified as medium or larger by the census, with populations ranging from approximately 30,000 to 65,000. All are in markets that had room for home builders.
Charlotte led the nation in population growth, increasing by 20,731 residents for a total population of 964,784. Fort Worth came in second with 19,512 people, surpassing 1 million people for the first time, and San Antonio also added 14,359 people. The South won 11 of the 15 largest numerical gains in the country.
Austin, Texas, surpassed the 1 million population threshold during this period, joining 12 U.S. cities with at least the same number of residents. Raleigh’s population exceeds 500,000, making it one of 39 cities of its size in the nation.
Outer ring exceeds core
Charlotte’s story is worth a closer look. Although the city added more residents in absolute terms than anywhere else in the country, it still could not keep up with its suburbs on a percentage basis.
The seven cities that outperformed the Charlotte metro in growth rates were all medium-sized, with populations ranging from approximately 25,000 to 70,000 people. Fort Mill, South Carolina, about 32 miles from downtown Charlotte, grew 6.8 percent to 38,673 people, ranking 20th in the nation among cities with a population of 20,000 or more.
The New York subway exhibits the same dynamic from the opposite direction. New York City lost 12,196 residents, the largest population decline in the nation. Meanwhile, four incorporated cities outside the metro ranked among the 200 fastest-growing cities in the country, based on rate of change. Port Chester, New York, led the group with a 4.1% increase.
Buyers who can’t afford or don’t want core cities are moving to the outer ring.
If you build it, they will come
Nationwide, population growth slowed, but housing construction did not.
The domestic housing stock will reach 148.3 million units in 2025, an increase of 1.4 million units, an increase of 1%, and almost the same as the previous year. In the five years from April 2020 to July 2025, the total housing stock increased by 7.8 million units (5.5%).
Idaho recorded the highest annual growth rate in housing units for the fifth consecutive year, at 2.1% from 2024 to 2025. Arizona followed with 2% and South Carolina with 1.9%. The District of Columbia and New Jersey followed with 0.2% each.
At the county level, Jasper County, South Carolina, led the nation for the second year in a row with a housing growth rate of 8.3%, beating runner-up Dawson County, Georgia, by almost 2 percentage points. Maricopa County, Arizona, increased by approximately 42,000 homes, ranking first in the nation for the second year in a row.
The places where the population is growing the fastest are almost always the places where the most active construction is taking place. Areas with less construction, such as Washington, D.C., New Jersey, and the Northeast coast, are losing residents.
What does it mean for real estate agents?
The Census data confirms a pattern that real estate agents in high-growth urban areas have been noticing for several years. Buyers aren’t just leaving the city for the suburbs. They are leaving large suburbs and moving to smaller suburbs.
The outer ring of major metros can offer proximity to jobs, new housing stock, and lower price points, a combination that has proven durable even as national growth rates slow.
For agents working in the Dallas suburbs, the outer ring of Charlotte, or the Phoenix suburbs, these numbers are confirmation. For agents based in large cities, especially in the Northeast, this data is a quiet pressure. A declining population and slowing housing growth have created a competitive market where listings and finding buyers are difficult.
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