You are a smart man. If I wanted a suburban life and was thinking long term, I would have done the same.
So, now that the Census updates for municipalities have been released, where does Raleigh stand in the pecking order & what can we expect from the next few years?
Well, Raleigh remains #41 behind Colorado Springs and Omaha. However, Raleigh is quickly closing the gaps & it appears that Omaha has stopped annexing its way to âgrowthâ while its county barely treads water.
I expect Raleigh to be #39 in the next several years and #40 when 2024 estimates are released this time next year.
Colorado Springs: 488,664, up nearly 10,000 from the 2020 Census
Omaha: 483,335, down nearly 3000 from the 2020 Census
Raleigh: 482,295, up nearly 15,000 from the 2020 Census
Colorado Springs is going to be tougher to pass because they are working with 48 more square miles of land area than Raleigh. Nonetheless Raleigh is growing faster and just needs to continue its urban development and suburban redevelopment.
7 Likes
Whatâs up with 36% growth in Angier? Do they have something going on I donât know about? At this rate, once they finish 540, we will need an outer outer beltway loop connecting up Lillington Sanford Pittsboro etc.
Maybe one or a few new subdivisions? It doesnât take much to grow by 36% when starting for a small base population.
7 Likes
Hereâs a nice link that allows you to download a spreadsheet for each state to see the populations for each year from 2020-2023. For data nerds only! City and Town Population Totals: 2020-2023 (census.gov)
2 Likes
Is there a link? I canât find this data anywhere.
Thereâs literally a link in the post just above yours.
I just went to the Census website myself.
All of the MSAs below are smaller than Raleigh-Cary today but were larger in 1990. In some of these cases, the MSAs we passed were over a million then and/or hundreds of thousands more populated.
Itâs pretty astounding when looked at in a list.
Akron
Albany
Albuquerque
Allenton
Bakersfield
Baton Rouge
Birmingham
Bridgeport
Buffalo
Columbia, SC
Dayton
El Paso
Fresno
Grand Rapids
Greenville, SC
Hartford
Honolulu
Knoxville
Louisville
Memphis
New Orleans
Oklahoma City
Omaha
Oxnard
Poughkeepsie
Richmond
Rochester
Salt Lake City
Scranton
Syracuse
Toledo
Tuscon
Tulsa
Worcester
Greensboro barely missed being on this list because it was about 540K while Raleigh was 541K.
FWIW, Raleigh will soon pass Milwaukee and then likely Providence is next to fall. Oh, and this is just the Raleigh-Cary MSA, not the CSA.
Source: Metropolitan Areas (USA): Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas - Population Statistics, Charts and Map
21 Likes
The 540 extension is showing up in some map apps now.
Itâs a small thing, but I think it goes a long way in giving visual identity to the area for transplants, tourists, reporters, and in general people navigating here from elsewhere
18 Likes
I was curious how the rollout would go on mapping applications and itâs pretty wild that itâs still not showing up. If you ask Google maps to go from Apex to Garner it still tells you to go through downtown Raleigh.
1 Like
Is it open? I donât think itâs open yet.
It was opened on Tuesday I think.
1 Like
One of my friends commuted from Clayton to Morrisville on it this week, so either heâs much more a daredevil than I give him credit for, or itâs open.
3 Likes
Do you how much it cost him?
No clue, but it took 30 minutes off his commute, heâs thrilled
7 Likes
And I am sure that others are thrilled to not have his car on I40 with everyone else! I suppose if I were a hybrid worker and only had to pay to drive once or twice a week, it would be preferable. I just wonder how folks who often purchases homes out in Johnston Co. because of affordability will react to paying upwards of hundreds of dollars a month for a daily commute? Itâs gotta be $5 each way, doesnât it? At that price, out and back 5 days a week would be 50 bucks a week or $200 a month.
So, I found out that end to end is actually over 8 bucks. 16+ bucks a day for 20 days a month would be over $320/month.
It is open. I drove across it Wednesday night and saw a few cars driving on it. Itâs also showing up on Google Maps now, although it doesnât seem to be able to calculate directions using 540 yet (I tried to drag the route onto 540 to no avail):
9 Likes
Speaking of metro areas it really irks me that Raleigh Durham Cary is not one MSA. The 2 principal cities are 25 miles apart. I just got back from Texas where Dallas and Fort Worth downtowns are 32 miles apart and that is one huge metro area (now over 8 Million) People over in Nashville are surprised when I tell them that Raleigh Durham combined metros are larger than Nashville. You have one airport. Cary has 1000s of residents in the town limits in Chatham County but that county is part of the âDurham metroâ. Likewise Raleigh city limits go into Durham county and vice versa. Your media market is one, people easily cross the âborderâ of the metro areas daily for shopping, work, going to hospitals, entertainment etc. Together being larger you can do more. Believe me Fort Worth and Dallas are very different cities and have different vibes but they understand the one metro. As for urbanization last time I checked it is fairly developed from downtown Raleigh through Cary and Morrisville to RTP and Durham County all the way to downtown Durham. Local officials need to really press Census bureau over this and of course we all remember that Raleigh and Durham were one once one metro areas. I contend they are more interconnected now than any time in the past.
15 Likes
Itâs my hope that Chatham County will become part of the Raleigh/Cary Metro area before too long 
2 Likes
Yep, Iâve been preaching that, but folks here donât seem to care, because they donât want Raleigh to be big. Eventually I think theyâll re-emerge us itâs about commuting patterns 25% threshold back in fourth between metros for a merger. Right now its about infill between both metros, and companies. But everyone in this forum knows local politicians do not care.
2 Likes