
Photo by Carlos Alfonso/Unsplash
This paper focuses on the 22 metropolitan statistical areas in the Sun Belt with a population of 1 million people or more. Together, they accounted for almost half of all population growth in the entire United States between 2010 and 2016.
Large Sun Belt metros are:
- Growing much faster than their counterparts elsewhere
- Adding more younger and older residents
- Adding many jobs, but mostly in the highest- and lowest-paying sectors
- Adding more poor residents
- Losing their housing affordability advantage
- More automobile-dependent, therefore they have high transportation costs and relatively low public transit ridership