– Decatur Street, New Orleans
The U.S. Census bureau ranked New Orleans as the fastest growing city in the nation last year, but populations in other South Central cities also are on the rise.
In Texas, Houston added the most people between July 1, 2006, and July 1, 2007, with 38,932 new residents, the Associated Press reported. San Antonio, Fort Worth and Austin were among the top 10 in numerical increases; and McKinney, Denton and Killeen were among the top 10 in percentage increases.
Oklahoma’s two largest cities posted modest gains in population from 2006 to 2007, but only one of the two – Oklahoma City – managed to keep that growth in the black between 2000 and 2007. Statewide, Oklahoma’s population had an almost 5 percent growth rate between April 1, 2000, and July 1, 2007, from 3,450,654 to 3,617,316.
New Orleans population is still about half what it was before Hurricane Katrina; its population jumped 13.8 percent to 239,124, according to the census bureau’s latest statistics on cities with populations of at least 100,000. But that’s still less than half the 453,726 people living there about two months before Katrina devastated the city and led to a near-total evacuation in August 2005. The size of New Orleans’ population has been debated since post-storm recovery began.
The U.S. Census Bureau report may be found online at http://www.census.gov/.
Associated Press reports contributed to this story.