Population growth set to pick up
After a lull, Chester County’s population is expected to increase
If you could imagine the population of Chester County as a well-tuned jogger, its pace in the year between 2015 and 2016 would be that period when it took a little breather after a long, productive run.
But, completing the analogy, observers say that the current rest stop is just a prelude to a return to form, when the county was among the state’s fastest growing.
“I think that we will see significant increases” in the years to come,” said Brian O’Leary, the executive director of the county Planning Commission, reacting to figures released last week by the Pennsylvania State Data Center at Penn State’s Harrisburg campus. “There are a lot of (development) proposals out there now, so (the prospects for population growth) seem to be picking up a little bit.
“As the economy picks up and the millennial population begins to move in, the housing pipeline will most likely lead to additional growth over the next five years,” O’Leary said.
According to the figures from the 2016 county population estimates issued by the U.S. Census last week, the county’s population increased from 515,039 in 2015 to 516,312 as of July 1, 2016, a modest net growth of 373 people. That compares with a two-year growth period from2010 to 2012 of 7,697.
The state data center brief on population statistics said that Pennsylva- nia’s southeast and southcentral counties continued their growth into the second half of the decade. The five fastest growing counties include Cumberland, Centre, Lebanon, Lehigh, and Lancaster. Elsewhere in the state, however, most counties have experienced losses in their total populations.
Philadelphia, the commonwealth’s most populous county, reported the largest growth numerically at 41,866 persons since 2010, although Montgomery County, at 3,362, outpaced Philadelphia’s growth from 2015 to 2016. Montgomery’s growth since 2010, with a 21,841 increase, and Lancaster, with 19,052, Chester, with 17,166, and Lehigh, with 13,521, followed the City of Brotherly Love as the highest grossing counties numerically since 2010.
Sullivan County had the highest decrease in 2016 at 2.5 percent, while other counties continued their downward trends since 2010 such as Cameron, Cambria, Susquehanna, Forest, and Elk. Decreasing populations across the state have resulted in low rankings nationally for county population growth, with nearly half of Pennsylvania’s counties falling in the bottom 50 percent of the nation.
The U.S. Census countylevel population estimates show the estimated population for all counties in the United States. The estimates are calculated using administrative records to estimate components of population change, such as births, deaths, and migration. The estimates reflect changes to the 2010 Census population resulting from legal boundary updates as of Jan. 1.
The state’s population is estimated at 12,784,277 as of July 1.
In an interview Friday, O’Leary said that the development trends the Planning Commission is seeing put projected growth in areas such as the Great Valley, Phoenixville, Kennett Square and Exton areas. He said the proposed developments were significantly greater for newapartments rather than single-family homes, and because they occur in already developed areas, like the county’s boroughs, “it is moremanaged growth.”
That continues a trend that dates back to the beginning of the decade, which saw boroughs in the county outpacing townships in terms of new residents, although the vast majority of residents continue to make their homes in one of the county’s 57 townships.
The growth in borough population was driven by a number of factors, including the fact that infrastructure, such as roads and water and sewage system, are largely in place, and that younger residents are finding it more affordable to relocate in those largely urban areas. In his interview, O’Leary suggested that millennials — those residents born in the early 1980s or 1990s — would boost the county’s populations as they relocate from large urban settings like Philadelphia to the suburbs.
Indeed, since 2010 the largest net migration from county to county occurred in the Montgomery Cumberland, and Lehigh counties, figures show.