Doug and Jessa Davis moved to Louisville from New York two years ago,
looking to trade congested Manhattan for a smaller city close to
rivers, creeks and woods.
"There was so much here
in terms of outdoor recreation opportunities," said Doug Davis, a former
police officer and co-owner of the recently opened River City Canoe
& Kayak on Cherokee Road.
The Davises are among those who helped boost the
Louisville area's population by 96,160 people in the past decade,
according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.
While that population growth should help lift the
area's overall economy and bring new opportunities for businesses
serving the new arrivals, the increase looks modest compared with the
gains in nearby cities.
The
13-county metro area's 8.3 percent population increase was smaller than
the growth in Indianapolis, Nashville and Columbus; tied with the
increase in Memphis; and was just barely higher than the rise in
Cincinnati. Lexington, meanwhile, grew 15.3 percent, to 470,850.
"We're showing
positive, steady growth, and that's good," said Eileen Pickett, senior
vice president for community and economic development at Greater
Louisville Inc., the metro area chamber of commerce.
And Louisville did buck a trend affecting the other
cities' metro areas.
All
of the cities recorded net losses in their main urban counties among
mobile residents such as graduating students and job seekers, who
frequently move within the United States. But Louisville's losses were
less severe, and as the decade came to a close, the city was showing an
overall gain in those residents.
From 2006 to 2009, the other cities in the region
recorded population losses from their main urban counties -- nearly
12,000 in Indianapolis and more than 27,000 in Memphis -- while
Louisville gained 2,700 residents.
It isn't clear whether the news is all good.
Researchers speculate that the economic downturn may simply have made it
more difficult for job seekers and others to leave.
"This is during the buildup of the recession, then
the recessionary period, and it could be simply that people didn't have a
place to go," said Michael Price, interim director of the Kentucky
State Data Center at the University of Louisville.
Yet, the Census Bureau indicates Louisville has had some success
attracting younger residents to move to the area.
The city added 1,360 people between the ages of 20
and 24 from 2006 to 2008, according to Price's analysis of the latest
American Community Survey, an annual Census survey of selected
households.
"That's
a turnaround," Price said. "Before, we used to lose them."
Pickett said those
gains are likely a result of many factors that may include efforts to
position Louisville as "the place to come and do business and live."
"Hopefully it adds up
to some significant momentum going forward," she said.
Outlying
counties grow
The Census data, based on
birth and death certificates and other records, are among the last
estimates before this year's household-by-household count is released
starting next January.
About
half of the Louisville metro area's population gains were because of
natural increases in births outnumbering deaths. About one-third of the
gain came from people moving into the area outnumbering those who moved
out. International migration accounted for about 18 percent.
By comparison, the
Nashville metro area's population jumped by 270,500 during the decade,
fueled by people moving to the area. Indianapolis increased by 218,500.
And in both of those
areas, outlying counties were the fastest-growing regions. The same was
true locally, where suburban and rural counties grew by 14.5 percent,
with that population boom including people leaving Louisville.
Kirk Roggenkamp left
Jefferson County for Crandall, Ind., about 20 miles to the west in 2005.
He and his wife, Cathy Hill, are avid cyclists and enjoy biking along
the rural Harrison County roads.
"It just seemed like a nice rural community and I love
living in a small community," said Roggenkamp, a licensed clinical
social worker who had spent four years in Los Angeles starting in the
late 1980s. "I've done the big, crowded thing."
Reluctance
to move
The shuffling of people in and
out of Louisville resulted in a net loss of 8,500 so-called "domestic
migrants" during the decade, easily the lowest number among the regional
cities. Nashville, for example, hemorrhaged 21,400 people, and
Indianapolis lost 55,000.
Those
trends aren't uncommon. Metro areas' core counties tend to grow because
of immigration and births, while the addition of workers moving in
helps boost outlying counties, said Ken Johnson, senior demographer at
the University of New Hampshire's Carsey Institute.
But in recent years those losses started to wane, the
Census data show. That could indicate, for example, fewer relocation
opportunities for workers or a challenging real estate market, Johnson
said.
"What has
happened is that this recession has sobered a lot of Americans," Johnson
said. "I think that what that means is they're going to be more
reluctant to move than they had been."
Reporter Marcus Green can be reached at (502)
582-4675.