The news comes as no surprise to locals: the Austin area is still growing — and fast.
New numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau show the population of the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos area was the second fastest-growing metro area in the country between April 2010 and July 2011.
In just that 15-month period, the population went up by 3.9 percent—that’s a gain of more than 67,000 people and put the total population at close to 1.8 million.
The only metro that saw more growth was in Washington state. There, the Kennewick-Pasco-Richland area saw a population increase of 4.3 percent.
The Census Bureau says there's been an ongoing trend in the South and West. Three other Texas metros were among the nation’s top 20 fastest growing—San Antonio, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston.
Austin had a bigger percentage of growth between 2010 and 2011, but DFW and Houston gained more people between in that time than any other metro area (155,000 and 140,000, respectively). In fact, Houston hit the 6 million population mark between 2010 and 2011.
