Population Gains in Metro Areas Driven Largely by Growth in the Exurbs This Decade — With Some Exceptions

Since 2020, city centers of many major U.S. metro areas have had sluggish population gains, with some places even declining. But where growth did occur, it was mostly on the outer edges of these metro areas — with some exceptions.

The Census Bureau’s Vintage 2025 population estimates for cities and towns released today allow us to explore where population losses and gains happened within metro areas.

We selected a major metro area in each of the four regions — South, Northeast, Midwest and West — and analyzed how the populations have shifted during the first half of this decade. Within each metro area, we looked at the percent change in population between April 1, 2020, and July 1, 2025, in incorporated places (with at least 20,000 people in 2025).

Some trends, such as the growth of exurbs, can shape populations in strikingly similar fashion in places hundreds or thousands of miles apart.

The four metro areas ranged in population from 3.8 million to 20 million and exemplify a variety of demographic and geographic characteristics: Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX; New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ; Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI; Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA.

Analyzing population change in each confirmed growth farther from the center of metro areas was a dominant, but not universal, trend.

All four metro areas had overall population gains ranging from as little as 0.1% in New York to as much as 11.0% in Dallas. But Seattle was the only one that experienced growth in its city center and inner suburbs; the others’ gains were fueled by exurban growth.

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