LOCAL

Nashville area named among the top 20 fastest growing areas in the country for 2024

Portrait of Diana Leyva Diana Leyva
Nashville Tennessean

The Nashville Metropolitan Statistical Area has been named one of the fastest growing areas in the country for 2024. The report comes from Exploding Topics, which drew its data from the most recent US Census (2020), worldometers, worldclimate.com, bestplaces.net, and related sources. Exploding Topics is a site which determines trends using a combination of data analytics, machine learning, and human analysis.

Nashville claimed the No. 10 spot, behind metro areas in Texas, Arizona and Florida.

In 2023, the Nashville Metropolitan Statistical Area — which includes Davidson, Murfreesboro and Franklin — increased by approximately 86 people a day, said the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce in March. The rise in population occurred through natural population changes as well as more people coming from other parts of the country.

More recently, information from the U.S. Census Bureau highlighted how Tennessee's population changed between 2022 and 2023. According to the data, between July 2022 and July 2023 Tennessee saw a 1.1% change in population.

The Middle Tennessee area saw the biggest increases with Clarksville and Spring Hill each seeing spikes of more than 2%. Surrounding areas also saw population increases including Murfreesboro, up by 1.9%, Smyrna, up by 1.6% and Franklin, up by 1.3%.

The report from Exploding Topics attributed the expanding growth to tourism, the healthcare industry and multiple businesses setting up headquarters in the Nashville Area. For example Bridgestone Americas Inc., Nissan North America, Tractor Supply and pretty soon — Oracle Corp.

Here are the top 20 fastest growing Metro areas, according to the report.

Top 20 fastest growing Metro areas in the U.S.

  1. Austin, Texas
  2. Raleigh, N.C.
  3. Orlando, Fla.
  4. Charleston, S.C.
  5. Houston, Texas
  6. Sarasota, Fla.
  7. San Antonio, Texas
  8. Dallas, Texas
  9. Phoenix, Ariz.
  10. Nashville, Tenn.
  11. Charlotte, N.C.
  12. Denver, Colo.
  13. Las Vegas, Nev.
  14. Seattle, Wash.
  15. Jacksonville, Fla.
  16. Tampa, Fla.
  17. Atlanta, Ga.
  18. Salt Lake City, Utah
  19. Oklahoma City, Okla.
  20. McAllen, Texas

Diana Leyva covers trending news and service journalism for The Tennessean. Contact her at Dleyva@gannett.com or follow her on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, at @_leyvadiana