Warren County saw the biggest annual change among all counties in the region, adding 2,653 residents to reach a total of 224,469 during the 12 months ending on July 1. That equated to a growth rate of 1.2 percent.
Montgomery County — the fifth-largest county in Ohio — showed no annual gain. In fact, Montgomery was one of six counties in the nine-county region that actually lost population. The county shed 257 residents according to the annual estimates, second only to Clark County, which lost 523 people during the same period.
The pattern of stagnant population growth may be even worse than it appears in the census report, according to population expert Mark Salling, who noted that most of the new residents gained in Ohio were the result of a greater number of births than deaths.
“We continue to have more births than deaths … so there’s going to be a natural increase in population. The question is what happened with migration,” said Salling, director of the Northern Ohio Data and Information Service and senior fellow at Cleveland State University’s Levin College of Urban Affairs.
In addition to overall population change, the bureau also released estimates of the components of that change. One of those is the natural population change, or net births minus deaths. That represents the part of population change that isn’t tied into some form of international or domestic migration.
The total population gain in Ohio last year was almost entirely due to a natural increase of 28,162, according to census data. International and domestic migration combined showed a net loss of 10,604. Since 2010, net migration is down by nearly 58,000 residents.
“It’s an ongoing trend,” Salling said. “We’re in a pattern of decline. As the population ages, and we see fewer births, at some point we’re going to begin to see a net loss” in Ohio’s population, he said.
The trend has damaging long-term implications for the state’s economy, which depends on consumption to grow.
“When there are fewer people, there is less buying power,” said Salling, noting that fewer people buying cars, clothes and groceries prevents the economy from churning. “It’s a circular and cumulative trend. As population is lost, employment decreases, and that means less spending for businesses.”
But there is some good news in the data.
While their numbers are too small to compensate for population losses across the state, the census data reflects a new wave of domestic migration, including highly educated so-called millennials moving to cities such as Cleveland and Columbus.
In fact, Delaware County, which is included in the Columbus metro area, was the only Ohio county among the 100 fastest-growing in the country from 2010 to 2015, ranking No. 92, according to census data.
The fastest-growing county in the nation was Williams County, N.D., which saw its population surge by 12,896 — or 57.6 percent — over the same period, thanks largely to the oil boom on the Northern Plains.
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