USA Today Highlights OKC's Population Growth

Oklahoma City, suburbs see 'significant growth'
By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY
Feb. 16, 2011

Oklahoma's big metropolitan areas — especially Oklahoma City, the state capital — are attracting new residents from across the nation and the rural areas of the state.

Census data released Tuesday showed that the state's biggest cities and counties enjoyed robust population growth nearly everywhere from 2000 to 2010.

The big winner was Oklahoma City. It added 73,867 residents over the decade — a 15% increase — to a population of 579,999. It remains the state's largest city. Suburban counties just outside the city grew enormously, too, pushing the metro area to 1,252,987.

"People are moving to the metro areas," says Steven Barker, a senior researcher with the Oklahoma Commerce Department. "We're looking at very significant growth."

Newcomers are being lured by the state's relatively strong economy, he says. College graduates are staying and arriving to work in the oil and gas business, aerospace and other industries.

The state's unemployment rate in December was 6.6%, far below the national average. It's even lower in the Oklahoma City area, thanks to government and university jobs.

All six of the fastest growing counties were located in the suburbs of Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Barker says. The state's fastest growing big county, Canadian, grew 32% during the decade to 115,541 residents. It's located on Oklahoma City's west side.

Lawton — the center of the state's other official metropolitan area and home to the Army's Fort Sill — grew 8% during the decade. That reversed previous Census estimates that its population had been flat.

Eric Long, economic researcher at the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce, says his area has prospered because it has 18 universities, including the University of Oklahoma. It also avoided the housing boom and the economic fallout from its collapse, he says.

The move to the cities left 23 of Oklahoma's 77 counties in population decline. Cimarron County — in cowboy country, the far west of the Oklahoma Panhandle — suffered the biggest drop among the rural counties. The county, home to the highest elevation in the state, saw its population decline 21% to 2,475.

Other Census findings:

•Hispanic population. The Hispanic population soared 85% during the decade to 332,007 in 2010. That increased the portion of Hispanics in this largely non-Hispanic white state from 5.2% of the population in 2000 to 8.9% in 2010.

• Diversity. Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Lawton and Muskogee had the most ethnically diverse populations. The Asian population also grew swiftly, mostly in metro areas.

In a rare downward trend, Tulsa suffered a slight population drop during the decade. It lost 1,143 residents to post a population of 391,906 in 2010. Those losses were made up by big gains in the suburban counties of Rogers and Wagoner. The total Tulsa metro area grew by more than 75,000. Tulsa had a 7.4% unemployment rate in December, the most recent figure available, worse than the state and Oklahoma City's 6.1% rate.

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