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New census figures show Triad cities are growing

Since early in the pandemic, Burlington has grown by about 3.5%. Image courtesy of the City of Burlington.

Since early in the pandemic, Burlington has grown by about 3.5%. Image courtesy of the City of Burlington.

The U.S. Census Bureau has released new population data for the nation’s cities, towns and counties since the start of the pandemic.

The Census Bureau says nine of the 15 fastest-growing cities in the country are in the South. Burlington didn’t make that list. But the Alamance County municipality does sit atop the growth charts for four cities in this region with 50,000 or more people.

Since the first full month of the pandemic in April 2020, Burlington grew by about 3.5%, the fastest rate of the four major cities. 

Peter Bishop is the economic development director for Burlington. He says numbers show that the gap between the Triad and the Triangle is closing. 

“Housing prices have been generally higher in Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Durham, Raleigh, Cary, etc.," he says. "That's pushing more homebuyers and more developers into greener, undeveloped or lesser-developed areas like Alamance County.”

Bishop also says workforce development efforts have made Burlington an attractive place for employers.

Winston-Salem, Greensboro and High Point also grew, but at a more modest pace. None of them reached 1% growth during the period from April 1, 2020, to July 1, 2022.

Census figures show small towns in the South — those with fewer than 50,000 people — grew by about 0.4%.

Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.

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