Raleigh and Statistical Area Population

That population chart skips from 2012 to 2020.
That was clearly a projection that didn’t take into account the annexation law that went into effect after 2012 changes. @TedF ? Thoughts?

The annexation law disallowed forced annexations. Raleigh only did them maybe about one every year. Certainly not anywhere near enough to account for a significant increase in population or land area. Note that Wake County estimates the population to be about 505,000 which was a 5,000 increase over 12 months.

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Is the 210 square miles also aligned with Raleigh’s ETJ?
After having a 2019 Census estimate under 475,000, I’ll be shocked if the 2020 Census count comes in anywhere near 500,000.

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Current ETJ area is about 182 square miles. It’s possible that maybe someone looked at the Raleigh Zip Codes to get the 210 square miles? As the they extend way beyond the city limits. Don’t know just trying to guess where that number is coming from.

That’s interesting. Now it makes me want to start searching the web to figure it out.

Okay…I found this:

The city’s annexation expansion has been
accompanied by major water and sewer extensions
and completion of the southern Beltline (I-40) and
portions of the Northern Wake Expressway (I540). Based on Wake County’s approval to extend
water and sewer infrastructure and create a future
Urban Service Area (USA), Raleigh also has the
potential to annex an additional 18,649 acres
beyond its current ETJ. No additional land area is
available beyond these limits due to annexation
agreements with neighboring jurisdictions that
have essentially assigned all of Wake County
outside of existing and planned water supply
watersheds into urbanizing areas. Therefore,
Raleigh has the ability to annex over 41,000 acres
(64 square miles), for an ultimate size of
approximately 134,700 acres or 210 square miles.
Similarly-sized cities include Columbus, Ohio and
Tucson, Arizona.

and this…

By 2030, Raleigh is projected to grow by
approximately 150,000 people. It has a remaining
growth area of 64 square miles based on current
annexation agreements. The city is poised to
continue a high level of population growth because
of its positive quality-of-life factors: a location for
high-tech jobs; a highly-educated population;
excellent universities and quality public school
system; the diversity of its housing; relatively mild
winters; and a revitalizing downtown. However,
the last 50 years of suburban growth and new
global issues—energy insecurity and climate
change—have created a cumulative challenge of
interrelated land use issues that Raleigh will need
to address over the coming years.

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Well the city does grow 32,000 that pretty much puts it over the 500,000. They were fears growth would be halted because of Covid, but we don’t know yet!

OMB proposes a few changes to its rules. Most notable for Raleigh, MSA updates will now happen every five years, with the next in June 2023.
https://beta.regulations.gov/document/OMB-2021-0001-0001
The other big changes proposed would knock a bunch of smaller cities (in NC, Goldsboro, New Bern, Rocky Mount) down to micropolitan from metropolitan, and discontinue the superfluous NECTAs in county-less New England.

Not much to see, but there’s an open docket for comment too.

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I’m excited to see how the new Census numbers impact Raleigh, the Triangle, and North Carolina.

In the discussion about combining the Raleigh-Cary and Durham-Chapel Hill MSAs, I’m starting to think about how living/communting preferences and the geographic size of Wake, Durham, and Orange Counties affects the commuting share. Wake is obviously much larger, providing many options for housing and neighborhoods. Wake also has many municipalities each with its own identity and character. With Durham County being much smaller, for many commuters the driving time from Wake to one side of Durham or the other becomes neglible. Together this makes it easier/desirable to live in Wake County whether you work in Durham County or Wake County.

In contrast, Dallas and Fort Worth each have many suburbs and exurbs that create more of a connection between Dallas and Tarrant Counties.

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Does anyone know if the new 2020 Census info to the public will be delayed (usually July of the year) due to recent politics?

I already suggested them recombine the Durham-Chapel Hill MSA with the Raleigh-Carty MSA it’s good, for jobs, population, growth and city growth, and corporate growth.

A way to look at is that western Cary & Brier Creek in Raleigh are closer to DT Durham than they are to DT Raleigh. Western Cary is also closer to Chapel Hill than it is to DT Raleigh. It’s factual that most of the Triangle’s true suburbs are located in Wake.

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Another factor are the school districts. Whether justified or not, and I don’t have an informed opinion, there is a stigma to Durham schools. It’s a pretty big factor to which side of the border families end up choosing to reside, despite working in Durham.

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Downtown Durham mostly benefits from the 147 cutting straight through while the most direct routes to Downtown Raleigh (Glenwood and 40) are choked off with lights and/or a Beltline built to encircle downtown. Development has both its benefits and drawbacks. But by and large the 540 swath is in that all-important under 30 minute drive to either downtowns (and the Park) and it’s definitely why that’s the most valuable land in the Triangle.

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There’s been no word from the bureau about exact timing of the data release. The bureau director just stepped down and there was an executive order signed on the 21st blocking the reporting of citizenship information in the apportionment data. Neither of those things should actually affect the timing of the data release. The bigger issue is that actual counting continued into September (and might have gone longer) because of the pandemic, and so there may be delays due to that, but there is nothing on their public calendar or their press kits about when we can expect data. I would assume the usual schedule is still reasonable.

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Did this already get posted?

Wouldn’t it just be Raleigh’s luck that the new MSA designation leads with Durham due to RTP being mostly in Durham County? That said, I don’t think that they’d name it that way.

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I believe April 1st is the traditional release of state numbers, and then they get the more granular numbers released sporadically over the rest of the year. Like household numbers will be at the end. I can’t remember when city and county numbers first come out.

Edit: Looking at 2011, it was March 24th and we got the cities, counties, and states.

of course with just 24 +/- months to go before 75%-80% of 540 opens to encircle Raleigh, the 540 swath won’t mean what it means right now in terms of 30 mins to either downtown…Truly anything inside the 540 region and all that to the North and West is prime. The South is growing due to spreading from the Cary and somewhat from the East/Garner. The last Eastern chunk (from 40 to I-495 64/264) isn’t planned to even START construction till 2029, but that’s really the last wide open low density area that remains an option to become suburban.

Interestingly, I believe that 540 will end up being 100% in Wake County, although it’s gonna come close to JoCo down by Clayton

Folks inside the HUGE part of 540 that opens in 2023 are definitely not equidistant to Durham and Raleigh downtowns, though

Maybe the new section will be 100% in Wake, but the 540/40 interchange on the western side is already in Durham County.

I’ll give you the ramps if it’ll make Durham feel like they’ve become the big city by having 'em :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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The intersection on the east side of 540s interchange with 40 is going to be really close to also not being in Wake County.