Friday, May 20, 2016 :::
The census recently released estimates of populations of cities over 50,000 residents, and I've seen (a few different places) lists of the ten cities over 50,000 or over 100,000 with the largest year-over-year growth. They all use percent growth, and the leaders are naturally all close to the inclusion threshold; conversely, if you use absolute growth, your leaders are NYC, Houston, and Los Angeles, which are also the three largest cities that showed positive growth. Below is a list of the top 25 cities ranked by absolute change divided by latest population to the power of 5/8, a number whose selection was based on my own aesthetic sense that it gave a good mix of cities at different ends of the population range.[1]
One of the reasons I've seen this pop up is that the town in which my brother and I lived from 6–12 grade is near the top of the percentage lists; it shows up as 11th here.
city | 2015 | 2014 | Δ | Δ/pop5/8 |
Frisco, Texas | 154407 | 145189 | 9218 | 5.27 |
Georgetown, Texas | 63716 | 59105 | 4611 | 4.58 |
Houston, Texas | 2296224 | 2256192 | 40032 | 4.23 |
Denver, Colorado | 682545 | 663963 | 18582 | 4.2 |
San Antonio, Texas | 1469845 | 1440309 | 29536 | 4.13 |
New Braunfels, Texas | 70543 | 66204 | 4339 | 4.05 |
Fort Worth, Texas | 833319 | 813425 | 19894 | 3.96 |
Pearland, Texas | 108821 | 103348 | 5473 | 3.89 |
Ankeny, Iowa | 56764 | 53299 | 3465 | 3.7 |
South Jordan, Utah | 66648 | 62851 | 3797 | 3.67 |
Austin, Texas | 931830 | 912713 | 19117 | 3.55 |
Irvine, California | 256927 | 248401 | 8526 | 3.54 |
Charlotte, North Carolina | 827097 | 809402 | 17695 | 3.54 |
Gilbert, Arizona | 247542 | 239415 | 8127 | 3.46 |
Seattle, Washington | 684451 | 669112 | 15339 | 3.46 |
Murfreesboro, Tennessee | 126118 | 120849 | 5269 | 3.42 |
Milpitas, California | 77604 | 73733 | 3871 | 3.4 |
McKinney, Texas | 162898 | 156898 | 6000 | 3.32 |
Phoenix, Arizona | 1563025 | 1538411 | 24614 | 3.31 |
Henderson, Nevada | 285667 | 277302 | 8365 | 3.26 |
Dublin, California | 57721 | 54730 | 2991 | 3.16 |
Orlando, Florida | 270934 | 263074 | 7860 | 3.16 |
Broomfield, Colorado | 65065 | 61875 | 3190 | 3.13 |
Raleigh, North Carolina | 451066 | 440399 | 10667 | 3.12 |
Mount Pleasant, South Carolina | 81317 | 77667 | 3650 | 3.11 |
[1] 1/2 seems natural, but still seemed to have too many large cities at the top. At that point a power of 5/8 pretty well fit the distribution of the top cities, i.e. their absolute changes tended to go as city size to the 5/8. So it was driven by my own aesthetic sense, but justified after the fact by Science.
::: posted by dWj at 11:34 AM
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