Jon Gorey - Globe Correspondent
January 13, 2021 11:40 am
Blame the housing prices or the cold, but for the first time in living memory, Boston no longer ranks among the top 10 most populous metro areas in the United States. We were bumped to No. 11 by the fast-sprawling Phoenix area.
In fact, after a decade of slow but steady growth, Census estimates released last month show that Massachusetts actually lost people in the 12 months ending July 1, 2020, for the first time since 2005. (In New England, only Maine and New Hampshire added residents in that time.) And while the Bay State’s population grew by about 5 percent from 2010 to 2020 — more than every other Northeastern state — that was still below the national average of 6.5 percent. Southern and Western states have seen the fastest growth, with Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Nevada, Texas, Utah, and the District of Columbia all seeing population surges by 15 percent or more in the past decade.