Posted on: February 14, 2024
With the adoption of a new Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP) this month (February 2024), ARC has a new adopted series of subregional forecasts (that support that MTP project planning) to share! These Series 17 small-area forecasts are produced for population, employment (jobs) by sector, age, and race. The published population and job forecasts go down to the census tract level. The race and age data are provided at the county level. Now, we previously issued these forecasts at the regional level but as you’ll see below, we can offer way more geographic and substantive detail now than we could then!
Here are the highlights for our Series 17 subregional forecasts:
- Diversity will drive the region’s growth. Virtually all the net growth will come from populations of color. For example, Hispanic and Latino residents are forecast to account for 21% of the region’s population in 2050, compared to 12% today
- The region’s population of older adults will grow at fast rate: In 2050, nearly 12% of the region’s population, more than 900,000 people, will be aged 75 or older. That compares to a share of less than 5% today.
- Growth to remain strong, but slower than previously forecast. The new 2050 population forecast is about 700,000 below what was forecast in the previous series adopted in 2020. Driving the slower growth are declining fertility rates and a drop in “in-migration” – that is, people moving to metro Atlanta from other parts of the country or from abroad. Both of these trends accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic.
- Fastest growth to occur in outer counties. The fastest-growing counties in the 21-county region through 2050 are forecast to be Forsyth (79%), Barrow (71%), Paulding (60%), Cherokee (53%), Walton (51%), and Coweta (51%).
- Strong growth in region’s core, too: The region’s five core counties (Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb, DeKalb, and Clayton, are forecast to add a total of 812,000 people by 2050, representing nearly half of the region’s total growth. And the areas inside the I-285 will “densify” the most.
- Employment in the Professional, Business and Technical Services sector will pace job growth in the region.
To investigate this new series further, we offer quite a few options. First, you could take a look at our Series 17 small-area summary in PDF form (PDF, 3 MB). Alternatively, you could scroll down and check out the slideshare presentation below. For (more) maps/ charts and downloadable data, visit our ARC forecast webpage. And finally, for interactive exploration, check out our Series 17 forecast data dashboard!
