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Senior Relocation Accounts for Fastest-Growing Metro Area04-15-15 | News

Senior Relocation Accounts for Fastest-Growing Metro Area

Florida had six of the nation's top 50 population-gaining metro areas. The U.S. population stands at 320,585,815 (net gain of one every 15 seconds). Source: U.S. Census data July 1, 2013, to July 1, 2014.

According to new figures from the U.S. Census, The Villages retirement community in the city of Winter Park, Florida, located just northwest of Orlando, is for the second year in a row the nation's fastest-growing metro area by percentage population gain. From July 1, 2013, to July 1, 2014, The Villages population increased 5.4 percent to 114,000 residents.

The new figures reveal Florida had six of the nation's top 50 numerically gaining metro areas. The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach area had the state's larges numeric gain (66,000), followed by the Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford area (50,000) and the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater triumvirate (41,000).

Two Texas metro areas"?uHouston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington"?uwere the only ones in the country to add more than 100,000 residents over the 2013-2014 period. Within the Houston metro area, Harris County alone gained almost 89,000 people, more than any other county in the nation.

Although Florida pushed New York out of third place in state population between 2013 and 2014, three New York City boroughs (i.e., counties) were among the top 50 county gainers. Kings (Brooklyn) added 19,000; Queens, gained 18,000 and the Bronx added 11,000.

Los Angeles County remains the nation's most populous county with 10.1 million. On the other end of the spectrum, the counties losing the most population are Wayne County, west of Detroit (loss 11,000), followed by Cuyahoga County, Ohio (loss 4,000).

There are 53 metro areas in the U.S. with 2014 populations of 1 million or more. The New York City metro area remains the nation's largest, with about 20.1 million people.