Overall, 17 of Indiana's 20 fastest growing communities are either in the Indianapolis metro area or in Lake County according to an IU Press Release.
(Sarah Neal-Estes/WFYI)
Westfield, Indiana’s population increased by 7.7 percent last year, making it the fastest-growing place in the state among those with at least 5,000 residents.
The Hamilton county city also had the greatest numerical growth, gaining 3,640 residents, according to estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau and analyzed by the Indiana Business Research Center.
“We will generally get those numbers (from the census bureau) and just do an analysis of the population trends, which are the communities that are growing the fastest, which have the largest gains, and then also which communities, are, tend to be losing population,” said Matt Kinghorn, senior demographer at the Center.
When looking at Indiana, Kinghorn said clear patterns show in areas that are growing and those that are stagnant or in decline.
“The biggest is that a handful of metropolitan areas are really driving all the growth in the state,” Kinghorn said.
The Indianapolis area, or the 11 counties in central Indiana, account for the lion’s share of population growth, Kinghorn said.
According to an IU news release, suburban communities around Indianapolis placed in the top five spots for Indiana’s fastest growing locales. Whitestown followed Westfield with a 7.4 percent population increase, McCordsville with a 7 percent increase, Avon at 5.7 percent increase and Bargersville at 5.4 percent.
Kinghorn also said growth has been strong in Lake County along with some emerging suburban communities outside of the Chicago area and in the southern part of the state outside of Louisville.
Three communities in Lake County ranked among the state’s 10 fastest growing places according to the news release. St. John increased by 4.9 percent, Cedar Lake by 3.9 percent and Winfield by 3.7 percent.
“We also have some other metropolitan areas in the state that are growing, you know, Bloomington, in Monroe County being one of them,” Kinghorn said.
Outside of the urban areas, Kinghorn said, large swaths of the state are experiencing population decline.
Both Evansville, which lost 772 residents, and South Bend, which lost 174 residents, are among those.
Indianapolis surprised Kinghorn, as many suburban communities around the city were still showing strong growth but Indianapolis declined.
“That's coming off of, if we looked maybe the 10 years previous to that, you know, there have been pretty healthy annual population growth in Indianapolis, but at about a half percentage point decline last year,” Kinghorn said.
The pandemic, Kinghorn said, certainly played a large role. Housing market issues, where very few homes are for sale, also affects growth there.
“That pushes them to those suburban areas where there's more construction going on,” Kinghorn said.
In Indiana, Kinghorn said the dominant driver of population growth is usually a natural increase, the difference between the number of births and number of deaths in a year.
“We usually have a lot more births than deaths in a year,” Kinghorn said. “But the natural increase has been declining as the population ages,”
In the last year, Kinghorn said the natural increase was essentially flat as the number of deaths spiked due to the pandemic.
“We're also seeing a decline in the number of births each year,” Kinghorn said. “And so we saw, you know, very low level of births during the pandemic,”
Overall, the state population grew by 0.3 percent, according to the release.
The impact of population growth and decline on a citizen's life really depends on the community a person lives in, Kinghorn said.
In an area with a declining population, Kinghorn said it’s seen in declining school enrollments and fewer services, like healthcare, than before.
“On the flip side, if you're in a suburban community in Indianapolis, then you see, very hot housing markets, you see, a lot of traffic,” Kinghorn said.
More than two-thirds of Indiana’s 6.8 million residents live in incorporated places, or an area with a municipal boundary and leadership, while the remaining 2.2 million live in unincorporated areas in the state, according to the release.
