Atlanta Expected To Grow To 8 Million People By 2040
The Atlanta area will grow by about 2.5 million people in the next 25 years, according to new projections from the Atlanta Regional Commission, and add about 1.5 million jobs. That will bring the population up to about 8 million people. But it won’t spread much more geographically.
“The term sprawl has been used a lot in the Atlanta area in the past,” said Jane Hayse, director of the Center for Livable Communities at ARC. “We believe that with these new forecasts, it’s not going to be continuing at the rate that it was back several decades ago.”
Instead, the ARC expects most people will live in existing neighborhoods and cities.
“That’s bucking really a 40-year trend in development growth,” said Mike Alexander, manager of the ARC’s Research and Analytics Division. “There’s a lot of cranes in Midtown, and that’s starting to impact these long-range forecasts.”
One of the reasons for the shift is the changing preferences of two big generations, Hayse said. Aging baby boomers are looking to live in more walkable communities, and so are the millennials.
The agency uses the projections for long-term city and transportation planning.
“Forecasting where people will live and work absolutely is a fundamental part of what the plan is all about,” Hayse said. “Particularly for transportation.”
The ARC is also expecting the region to get more diverse.
“We know the Hispanic population is going to grow dramatically long term, as will the Asian population in metro Atlanta,” Alexander said.
The ARC looks at national trends and talks with the different governments in the Atlanta area to make these forecasts. It revises them every few years.
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