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OBSERVATIONS
March 18, 2021 |
 |
 Wingate Lassiter |
Are we the "fastest growing county"
in the state? Almost, but not quite
County Commissioner Fred Smith said during Tuesday's joint session with the Board of Education that Johnston is North Carolina's second-fastest growing county. Is he correct?
Apparently we've got to wait till summer's end to get results of the official U.S. Census for 2020, so for now we'll have to use the latest Census estimates as of July 1, 2019:
Those numbers show Johnston County has grown from 168,878 in 2010 to 209,339 --- an increase of 24% and double the statewide growth of rate of 10% over the past decade.
Recent news reports have cited coastal Brunswick County as the state's fastest growing: up 32.9% from 107,431 to 142,820. Neighboring Wake County, meanwhile, has topped the 1.1-million mark yet its rate of growth is just below ours at 23.4% (even so, Wake has added as many new residents in the past decade as Johnston County has in total today).
Union County, about the same distance southeast of Charlotte as Johnston is from Raleigh, has grown much like we have in recent times --- its 2019 population just above ours at 239,859. Yet Union's rate of growth since 2010 is 19.1%, a percentage less than Johnston's.
After checking the numbers for as many likely counties in the state as I thought reasonable, I concede that Commissioner Smith is correct that we are North Carolina's second-fastest growing county.
No wonder our commissioners are anxious to get on with the task of reviewing the county's land-use rules to channel that growth where it ought to go and keep it away from places that needn't be disturbed.
A cheerfully colored harbinger of Spring
Forsythia in bloom this week
behind a residence near the corner of Chestnut Drive
and Wellons Street complement the Bradford pear in the
background as the most prominent of our early-season
bloomers.
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