5 Things to Know About ARC’s Latest Population and Employment Forecasts

There’s no doubt the Atlanta region is growing.

You can see it in the cranes dotting the skyline, the businesses expanding, and the strong demand for housing.

The big question: Where are we headed?

Every four years or so, ARC pulls out its crystal ball and forecasts what the Atlanta region will look like years down the road. The forecasts, which go all the way to 2050, help inform our long-range transportation planning efforts.

Here are five things you need to know about ARC’s population and employment forecasts:

The 21-county Atlanta region will add 1.8 million people by 2050, for a total population of 7.9 million

Yes, that’s a lot of people. To put that in context, it’s nearly the size of metro Nashville today!

However, the new forecast is about 700,000 below ARC’s previous forecast, which was adopted in 2020. That’s because we’re seeing even faster declines in fertility rates and in the amount of “in-migration” – that is, people moving to metro Atlanta from other parts of the country or from abroad.

We’ve been seeing these trends for a while, but they accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic.

What’s driving the growth? In a word: jobs

The main reason people move is for work. And metro Atlanta will be adding a lot of jobs through 2050 – about 856,000 for a total of 4.6 million, according to ARC’s employment forecast.

The largest growth in sheer number of jobs will come in the professional and business services sector. The fastest-growing sectors by percentage include arts, entertainment and recreation (68%), accommodation & food service (36%), and manufacturing (35%).

Our region will become even more diverse – and older

Metro Atlanta is already one of more diverse big regions in the country. And ARC forecasts we will grow even more diverse by 2050.

For example, Hispanic and Latino residents will account for 21% of the region’s population in 2050, compared to 12% today.

And our population of older adults will continue to grow as well. In 2050, nearly 12% of the region’s population – or more than 900,000 people – will be aged 75 or older. That compares to a share of less than 5% today.

The fastest growth with occur in the outer counties, but strong growth in the region’s core, too

The fastest-growing counties will be in the outer suburbs, where there’s undeveloped land available for new housing. Forsyth County leads the way with 79% growth, followed by Barrow (71%), Paulding (60%) and Cherokee (53%).

But that’s not to count out the region’s “Big 5” core counties of Clatyon, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett. The forecast shows that nearly half the region’s growth through 2050 will come from these counties.

No, we are not ‘full’

You’ve probably heard the saying around town that the ATL is “full.” Heck, you can even buy a T-shirt that spells it out in capital letters: “WE FULL – Atlanta.”

But the fact is, metro Atlanta has lots of room to grow. Consider one key measure, population density. Metro Atlanta has much lower population density than other large regions around the country and across the globe.

Metro Atlanta (the 28 counties as measured by the U.S. Census) has a population density of 701 per square mile. That’s the 32^nd most dense metro area in the nation, behind Southern peer regions like Tampa (1,262), Dallas (880), and Houston (861).

The most densely populated region in the country is New York, with a population density of 3,013 per square mile. That’s more than four times that of Atlanta. The second densest region is Los Angeles (2,721 per square mile).