Arizona continues to grow, Show Low up 1.6% a year | Apache County
PHOENIX – Arizona gained nearly 109,000 new residents last year.
But they were picky and picky about where in the state they wanted to live.
New figures from the State Office for Economic Opportunities show that the country grew by 1.5% between June 30, 2020 and a year later. This is how the agency tracks the annual growth.
And the more than 860,000 new residents in the past decade represented a 13.4% increase.
Show Low has grown to an official population of 11,966, up 1.6% over the last year and 11.9% over the last decade.
Navajo County grew only 0.9% last year and only 1.2% in a decade. The population of the district is 107,748.
In contrast, Apache County grew 0.5% in one year and has lost 6.7% of its population since 2011.
Where did many of the new citizens go?
Think areas near the state’s largest population center but far enough away to have affordable homes.
Queen Creek, large enough to overflow into Pinal County, saw population growth of 10% year over year. Buckeye, at the far end of the valley, was not far behind at 8.9%
And with growth for Phoenix in the immediate south being blocked by the Gila River Indian Community, the Pinal County parishes of Coolidge and Eloy remain at 7.1% and 5.3%, respectively.
The desire for affordable housing also caused the population of Casa Grande to rise by 4.3% and Maricopa by 4.2%.
Florence should probably have been on that list somewhere.
However, the official balance shows that the municipality actually lost nearly 1,600 residents over a 12-month period, making it the municipality with the largest percentage loss at 6.2%.
What is hidden behind it, however, has little to do with the desirability of the community. Jim Quang, the state demographer, said this had mainly to do with fewer people there in the care of the state Department of Justice.
The population in the Eyeman and Florence units increased from 9,031 in June 2020 to 7,796 a year later.
And the trend continues: the youngest number of inmates in the two facilities is now below 7,500.
Quang said the same thing was at work in Douglas, where prisoner numbers fell by 330 to 1,686 during the year. That meant a decrease of 232 inhabitants, a decrease of 1.4%.
And growth rates of less than 1% in other Cochise County’s parishes weren’t enough to keep up with the rest of the state.
The downside of the growth in the suburbs of the metropolitan areas is that the anchor towns are growing more slowly than the rest of the state.
Phoenix added about 19,000 residents, but only enough to see a 1.2% year-over-year increase. Mesa and Chander grew 1.1% annually, Scottsdale 0.7%, and inland Tempe pretty much exactly where it was a year earlier.
At the other end of the area, Glendale added just under 1,900 residents, an increase of 0.7%. But nearby Peoria – which is expanding much further and has room for growth – managed to record a growth rate of 1.9%, which rose to 3.8% for the even more distant surprise.
The same pattern can be seen in and around Pima County, where official figures show Tucson only added 2,925 new residents over the past year, a 0.5% change. In contrast, the population of Marana had an annual increase of 4.8%.
South of Tucson, Sahuarita saw a 3.5% population increase over the previous year.
And an additional 5,061 residents in the unincorporated areas of Pima County were enough to increase the population in that area by 1.4%, which still lags the state.
But the fact remains that Pima County lags behind not just Maricopa County, but the national average. And according to George Hammond of the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Business, the key is how the economy is built.
“Tucson is just a less dynamic economy,” he said, which is heavily dependent on federal, state and local government jobs.
“We just got a lot more of it,” said Hammond. “And it’s just not a growth industry.”
There is a positive side to all of this. Hammond said this tends to make the economy less prone to wild fluctuations.
But he also said that geography played a role in economic development.
Hammond said while companies try to relocate or expand in Arizona, the Phoenix area is “just a drag,” with things like much better airport connections.
In other states, Prescott Valley continues to grow faster than Prescott at 2.1% versus 1.8%. But even these were surpassed by population growth of 3.1% in Clarkdale and 2.4% in Chino Valley, although Cottonwood only grew 1.1%.
Sedona recorded a growth rate of 1.0%.
But as the state maintains its counts by district, the halved parish shows a marked difference between the Coconino side, which saw a 2.3% increase, versus less than 0.6% on the Yavapai county side.
The story for rural communities was mixed.
About 851 new Kingman residents last year was enough to increase the population by 2.6%. Safford also grew at a rate of 1.7%. And Yuma also outperformed the national average at 1.6%, if only just barely.
But Lake Havasu City’s additional 643 residents made up just 1.1%. The population of Nogales only grew by 0.7%.
And Flagstaff actually lost 345 residents, a 0.4% loss.
Municipality / population 2021 / change since 2020 / change since 2011
Apache Junction / 39.009 / 1.1% / 8.0%
Avondale / 90,755 / 1.4% / 17.7%
Benson / 5,365 / 0.1% / 4.9%
Bisbee / 4,968 / 0.9% / (-8.4)
Horse chestnut / 101,987 / 8.9% / 93.5%
Big City / 42,027 / 1.4% / 6.8%
Camp Verde / 12,216 / 0.6% / 11.3%
Carefree / 3,708 / 0.4% / 10.2%
Big house / 56.242 / 4.2% / 14.4%
Höhlenbach / 5,021 / 2.0% / 1.6%
Outfitters / 280,189 / 1.1% / 17.8%
Chino Valley / 13,429 / 2.4% / 23.2%
Clarkdale / 4,563 / 3.1% / 12.1%
Clifton / 3,909 / (-0.5%) / 21.6%
Colorado City / 2,507 / 1.2% / (-43.1%)
Cooler / 14,291 / 7.1% / 19.3%
Poplar / 12,185 / 1.1% / 9.0%
Dewey-Humbolt / 4,440 / 1.6% / 13.7%
Douglas / 16.302 / (-1.4%) / (-4.5%)
Duncan / 692 / (-0.3%) / 0.5%
Adler / 4,474 / 1.5 / (-7.4%)
The Fata Morgana / 36,101 / 0.5% / 12.7%
Eloy / 16,485 / 5.3% / (-2.7%)
Flagpole / 76,960 / (-0.4%) / 16.3%
Florence / 25,250 / (-6.2%) / (-5.9%)
Well hill / 23,906 / 0.2% / 6.3%
Fredonia / 1,374 / 3.9% / 5.2%
Crazy Bend / 1,893 / 0.1% / (-0.9%)
Gilbert / 273,796 / 1.9% / 29.1%
Glendale / 250,585 / 0.8% / 9.9%
Globus / 7.161 / (-1.2%) / (-4.1%)
Goodyear / 101,662 / 5.0% / 51.8%
Guadalupe / 5,329 / 0.1% / (-6.2%)
Hayden / 512 / 0.0% / (-19.9%)
Holbrook / 4,877 / 0.4% / (-1.7%)
Jerome / 467 / 0.6% / 5.0%
Kearny / 1,741 / 0.0% / (-9.1%)
Kingman / 33,716 / 2.6% / 19.8%
Lake Havasu City / 57,974 / 1.1% / 10.6%
Litchfield Park / 6.9.57 / 1.1% / 25.8%
Mammoth / 1,079 / 0.3% / (-21.7%)
Marana / 55,174 / 4.8% / 53.4%
Maricopa / 61,109 / 4.2% / 38.2%
Mesa / 510,792 / 1.1% / 15.5%
Miami / 1,539 / 0.0% / (-14.1%)
Nogales / 19,921 / 0.7% / (-3.6%)
Oro Valley / 48,222 / 2.1% / 16.9%
Page / 7,618 / 2.4% / 3.6%
Paradise Valley / 12,707 / 0.3% / (-0.5%)
Parker / 3,431 / 0.1% / 10.1%
Patagonia / 807 / 0.4% / (-10.2%)
Payson / 16,502 / 0.7% / 7.8%
Peoria / 195,585 / 1.9% / 25.1%
Phoenix / 1,630,195 / 1.2% / 12.2%
Pima cotton / 2,921 / 2.3% / 19.1%
Pinetop lakeside / 4,044 / 0.3% / (-3.8%)
Prescott / 46,826 / 1.8% / 16.7%
Prescott Valley / 47,998 / 2.1% / 23.9%
Quartzite / 2,417 / 0.1% / (-31.1%)
Queen Creek / 66,275 / 9.0% / 144.8%
Safford / 10,324 / 1.7% / 6.3%
Sahuarita / 35,588 / 3.5% / 37.6%
St. Johns / 3,434 / 0.5% / (-1.5%)
San Luis / 36,081 / 1.4% / 19.5%
Scottsdale / 243,528 / 0.7% / 12.0%
Sedona / 9,784 / 1.0% / (-5.7%)
Show Low / 11,966 / 1.6% / 11.9%
Sierra Vista / 45,851 / 0.9% / 1.6%
Snowflake / 6,266 / 2.5% / 12.8%
Somerton / 14,477 / 1.7% / 3.0%
South Tucson / 4,603 / (-0.3%) (-16.4%)
Springerville / 1,724 / 0.4% / (-10.8%)
Star Valley / 2,526 / 1.5% / 9.1%
Superior / 2,415 / 0.2% / (-12.9%)
Surprise / 149,710 / 3.8% / 26.1%
Taylor / 4,065 / 1.7% / 0.6%
Temperature / 181,548 / 0.8% / 12.3%
Thatcher / 5,332 / 1.4% / 8.0%
Tolleson / 7,309 / 0.6% / 11.4%
Tucson / 546,061 / 0.5% / 4.6%
Tusayan / 614 / 1.8% / 10.7%
Gravestone / 1,313 / 0.2% / (-3.0%)
Wellton / 2,482 / 3.8% / (-11.5%)
Wickenburg / 7,715 / 2.6% / 21.7%
Willcox / 3,229 / 0.5% / (-11.1%)
Williams / 3,384 / 4.9% / 13.4%
Winkelmann / 294 / 0.0% / (-14.3%)
Winslow / 9,019 / 0.2% / (5.0%)
Youngtown / 7,060 / 0.1% / 13.5%
Yuma / 97,883 / 1.6% / 8.0%
– Source: Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity
District / population 2021 / change since 2020 / change since 2011
Apache / 66,411 / 0.5% / (-6.7%)
Cochise / 126,463 / 0.6% / (-2.6%)
Coconino / 147,434 / 1.2% / 10.0%
Gila / 53,525 / 0.4% / 0.4 %%
Graham / 39,025 / 1.0% / 3.5%
Greenlee / 9,593 / 0.3% / 15.8%
La Paz / 16,820 / 1.4% / (-15.7%)
Maricopa / 4,507,419 / 1.6% / 17.3%
Mohave / 216,527 / 1.2% / 8.4%
Navajo / 107,748 / 0.9% / 1.2%
Pima cotton / 1,058,318 / 1.2% / 7.4%
Pinal / 439,128 / 2.5% / 15.6%
Santa Cruz / 48,468 / 1.4% / 2.3%
Yavapai / 241,173 / 1.7% / 14.1%
Yuma / 207,318 / 1.3% / 5.2%
Nationwide / 7,825,370 / 1.5% / 13.4%
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