How much U.S. metros will grow by 2025?

US is one of few advanced countries where population is continue to grow (thanks for immigrants!) and by 2050, the population is expected to grow to 438 million. However, some metropolitan area growth faster than others.

Business Journal has introduced metropolitan area's population growth to 2025. I have re-analyzed data among metropolitan area with 1 million population or larger as follows:

- New York City/Los Angeles/Chicago, Top 3 metros in 2005, maintain Top 3 status in 2025 but population growth rate is very low at 5.35%/9.63%/8.97% respectively.

- Among Top 10 metros, Sunbelt metros such as Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Atlanta & Phoenix grow very rapidly at the growth rate of 50.41％, 48.51%, 47.77％ & 79.11% respectively.

- The fastest growing metros are Raleigh, Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla., Austin, Phoenix, Charlotte, Las Vegas, Orlando, Jacksonville, Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif., McAllen-Edinburg, Texas, Bakersfield, Calif. & Dallas-Fort Worth. These metros will grow 50% in population.

- The declining metros are New Orleans(-19.32%), Buffalo(-9.71%), Cleveland(-8.91%), Pittsburgh(-6.84%), Rochester, N.Y(-2.43%) and Detroit(-1.32%). Except New Orleans, they are all located in Rustbelt area.

- Growh of Metros in North East such as Providence, Hartford, Philadelphia, New York City and Boston is below 10%. In other words, comparatively, North East has less importance in terms of economy.

- Metros in West Coast such as Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco-Oakland, San Jose, Seattle, Portland, Ore. grow moderately between 10% to 34%. I would say that explosive growth is days of the past.

2025 rank	Metro area	2025 population	Growth	Rank Up/Down
1	New York City	19,818,478	5.35%	0
2	Los Angeles	14,049,577	9.63%	0
3	Chicago	10,233,137	8.97%	0
4	Dallas-Fort Worth	8,750,408	50.41%	0
5	Houston	7,875,220	48.51%	2
6	Atlanta	7,308,508	47.77%	3
7	Phoenix	6,937,737	79.11%	6
8	Miami-Fort Lauderdale	6,590,616	22.61%	-2
9	Washington	6,514,361	24.75%	-1
10	Philadelphia	6,091,123	5.26%	-5
11	Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif.	6,045,701	56.16%	3
12	San Francisco-Oakland	4,901,988	17.90%	0
13	Boston	4,848,156	8.83%	-2
14	Detroit	4,436,940	-1.32%	-4
15	Seattle	4,095,360	28.09%	0
16	Minneapolis-St. Paul	3,883,032	23.99%	0
17	Tampa-St. Petersburg	3,801,743	44.17%	3
18	San Diego	3,540,934	20.78%	-1
19	Orlando	3,289,595	69.96%	9
20	Baltimore	3,067,938	15.90%	-1
21	Denver	2,978,712	26.31%	1
22	Las Vegas	2,952,842	73.39%	10
23	St. Louis	2,945,098	6.20%	-5
24	Portland, Ore.	2,801,944	34.25%	1
25	Austin	2,735,687	86.79%	13
26	Sacramento	2,705,510	33.12%	0
27	Charlotte	2,662,320	75.33%	10
28	San Antonio	2,658,737	41.49%	1
29	Cincinnati	2,404,354	14.43%	-5
30	Kansas City	2,255,680	16.43%	-3
31	Pittsburgh	2,210,061	-6.84%	-10
32	San Jose	2,178,385	24.99%	-2
33	Nashville	2,108,410	45.47%	6
34	Indianapolis	2,101,983	27.93%	0
35	Columbus, Ohio	2,074,112	21.13%	-4
36	Jacksonville	1,972,732	58.10%	6
37	Cleveland	1,927,745	-8.91%	-14
38	Raleigh	1,883,907	97.66%	13
39	Virginia Beach-Norfolk	1,748,189	5.99%	-6
40	Providence	1,672,481	3.88%	-5
41	Milwaukee	1,617,769	5.45%	-5
42	Richmond	1,507,337	28.49%	3
43	Memphis	1,418,875	13.26%	-2
44	Oklahoma City	1,372,903	18.92%	2
45	Louisville	1,362,626	12.87%	-2
46	Tucson	1,330,515	40.42%	6
47	Hartford	1,235,320	4.79%	-3
48	Salt Lake City	1,230,374	17.64%	1
49	Birmingham	1,202,905	10.53%	-1
50	Fresno, Calif.	1,156,154	32.80%	6
51	Bakersfield, Calif.	1,154,400	54.17%	15
52	New Orleans	1,058,909	-19.32%	-12
53	Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla.	1,056,780	95.28%	35
54	McAllen-Edinburg, Texas	1,036,769	55.40%	20
55	Buffalo	1,029,606	-9.71%	-8
56	Albuquerque	1,010,089	26.71%	5
57	Rochester, N.Y.	1,009,609	-2.43%	-7

For residential real estate investment, population growth plays significant roll as more population means higher demand for housing (both sales and lease). However, if you speculate solely upon population growth forecast, you would be penalized as seen in today's real estate bubble burst. The property value has done done by 50% in Sunbelt cities in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Florida cities and Central Valley in California.

Therefore, it is critical to monitor other dates like below:

How the Crash Will Reshape America?
Impact of Education Level to Real Estate Price....
Relationship between Household Income and Housing Ownership Cost (Japanese blog)
Rent-to-House Ownership Ratio (Japanese blog)
Restriction in Development (Japanese blog)

Happy Investing!!!!