Growth rate drops in metros
Steepest dip was along southern border due to decline in immigrants
Below, a Marine stands near a border wall separating Mexico from the united states in San Diego in 2025.
Houston was among U.S. metro growth leaders in 2025.
US DEMOGRAPHICS
Growth rates in U.S. metro areas dropped the steepest last year in communities along the border with Mexico because of declines in immigrants while counties along Florida's Gulf Coast lost residents due to a series of hurricanes, according to population estimates the U.S. Census Bureau released March 26. The estimates showed a majority of metro areas and counties had slower population gains last year, which the agency attributed primarily to a slowdown in international migration. A year earlier, an influx of immigrants helped urban areas recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The average growth rate for metro areas fell from 1.1% in 2024 to 0.6% in 2025.
The figures, covering one year through July 1, 2025, reflect the initial months of President Donald Trump's second term and the beginning of his administration's immigration crackdown. With an aging America and birth rates in the United States declining over the past two decades, immigration became an important source of growth in many communities.
"With so little natural increase, migration determines whether an area grows or declines, particularly in the big metro cores that have continuous domestic out-migration and are dependent on immigration," said Kenneth Johnson, senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire.
Immigrant losses
Three metro areas along the southern border stretching from Arizona to Texas had the steepest drops in population growth rates in 2025.
The growth rate in Laredo, Texas, dropped from 3.2% to 0.2%. It went from 3.3% to 1.4% in Yuma, Ariz., and declined from 1.2% into negative territory at -0.7% in El Centro, Calif. All three experienced growth in 2024 because of an influx of thousands of immigrants.
"That pattern suggests a sharper rise-and-fall effect in border regions, where international migration plays a more central role in year-to-year population change," said Helen You, interim director of the Texas Demographic Center.
As in 2024, the top destinations for immigrants in pure numbers in 2025 were counties that are home to Houston, Miami and Los Angeles. However, the drop in immigrant numbers in those counties was stark.
Hurricane migration
Two destructive hurricanes, Helene and Milton, tore through Gulf Coast counties in Florida in 2024, causing tens of billions of dollars in damage. The storms also caused residents to leave, according to the population estimates.
Pinellas County, home to St. Petersburg, lost almost 12,000 residents, the second most in the country, trailing only Los Angeles County, which lost population all decade. Pinellas County relies on migration for growth because deaths outpace births more than in any American county.
Taylor County, a tiny rural community ravaged by the hurricanes in Florida's Big Bend area, had the steepest growth rate decline among U.S. counties last year, with a 2.2% drop.
In the Blue Ridge Mountains, the county that is home to Asheville, North Carolina, had more than 2,000 residents leaving in the months after the remnants of Helene destroyed homes and cut off power and communications to mountain towns.
Growth leaders
The New York metro area slid from growing by the most people in 2024 to ranking No. 13 in 2025 because of the drop in immigrants.
Instead, two perennial growth powerhouses this decade, the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth metro areas, were at the top of the list, followed by the Atlanta, Phoenix and Charlotte, North Carolina, metro areas.
For midsize metros, several in Florida and South Carolina had the largest growth rates.
Ocala, Fla., led the nation at 3.4%. It was followed by metro Myrtle Beach, S.C., which became a retirement haven; Spartanburg, S.C.; Lakeland, Fla., and Punta Gorda, Fla.
Exurban Sunbelt
The far-out suburbs were top destinations among those who moved from somewhere else in the U.S. They were led by Collin County, Texas; Montgomery County, Texas; Pinal County, Ariz., and Pasco and Polk counties, Fla.
Boost from births
Though New York had more people moving out than moving in, births allowed the metro area to gain more than 32,000 residents. The New York metro area led the nation in natural increase, or births outpacing deaths, followed by the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston metros.
The metros where deaths outpaced births in the greatest numbers were Pittsburgh and several Florida communities with large senior populations — the Sarasota, Daytona Beach and Tampa metro areas.
The two Texas metro areas topped the charts in natural increase because of their age structure and the fact that they gained more people than anywhere in the U.S., You said.
"Decades of domestic and international in-migration have produced relatively young populations, with a large share of residents in childbearing ages, alongside comparatively smaller proportions of senior populations," she said.
