This file is getting long. Today’s entry is that according to the latest county-level US Census data, the long migration from central city to outer suburbs is reversing. For decades DC has gotten smaller each year, the inner suburbs have grown very slowly, and the outer suburbs have boomed. That isn’t what’s happening now.

Growth Between July 2007 and July 2008, ranked by rate:
Loudoun up 13, 000 (4.6%) to 290, 000
Arlington up 6, 000 (3%) to 210, 000
Alexandria up 4, 000 (2.9%) to 144, 000
Prince William up 5, 000 (1.4%) to 366, 000
Fairfax up 11, 000 (1.1%) to 1, 015, 000
Montgomery up 9, 000 (1%) to 951, 000
Howard up 2, 000 (0.9%) to 275, 000
DC up 4, 000 (0.7%) to 592, 000
Frederick up 1, 500 (0.7%) to 226, 000
Anne Arundel up 2, 000 (0.4%) to 513, 000
Charles up 600 (0.4%) to 141, 000
Prince George’s down 4, 500 (-0.5%) to 821, 000

Two of the region’s three fastest-growing jurisdictions are located completely inside the Beltway, and the District of Columbia is now growing at the same rate or faster than four of the six counties in suburban Maryland. As recently as two or three years ago, such data would have been absolutely unthinkable.

Nationally the trend is visible is some cities, but not all. I looked up three other large American central cities that double as counties (Denver, San Francisco, Baltimore) and found uneven results. Denver is growing faster than all but one of its suburbs, San Francisco ranks near the middle of Bay Area counties, and poor Baltimore is still shrinking. But even if this cities-growing-faster-than-suburbs thing isn’t being seen completely across the board, it does at least seem fair to say that the playing field of city to suburb growth is rapidly leveling.

Avent has more.

Update: Here’s another interesting way of looking at our region: The combined population total of the three central jurisdictions (DC, ArCo, Alexandria) is now 945, 687, up a total of 14, 062 from 2007 (1.5%). The combined population total of the three Beltway jurisdictions (Fairfax, Montgomery, PG) is now 2, 786, 834, up a total of 15, 874 from 2007 (0.6%). Even without PG to drag them down, Fairfax and Montgomery combined are barely growing at 1%. At this point, the core is definitely outperforming the Beltway by a sizable margin.