County Population Totals and Components of Change: 2020-2023
This page features county population estimates totals and components of change for years 2020-2023.
www.census.gov
OT: Latest (July 2022) county population estimates are out
- Thread starter RocketDawg
- Start date
www.census.gov
I see my county lost 652 or about 2.5%. CopiahCounty Population Totals and Components of Change: 2020-2023
This page features county population estimates totals and components of change for years 2020-2023.
Looks like Lafayette, George, and DeSoto are seeing the most positive trends from a percentage basisCounty Population Totals and Components of Change: 2020-2023
This page features county population estimates totals and components of change for years 2020-2023.
I am really worried about the economic growth happening around Oxford. They are definitely set to peel away some Memphis / DeSoto population with teleworking being more popular. It might be easy to justify an hour commute each way if you’re only going into the office once or twice a week. I would think Oxford’s real estate prices are right at the top of the State’s. They have definitely spiked since 2020.
I commute 45 minutes each way 3-4 times a week now. I'd certainly swap...BUT, I think the teleworking pendulum will begin shifting, if it hasn't already. That said, both the county and city school systems in Oxford and Lafayette are positive draws for workforce development.
I've always thought Batesville / Panola County would be a good investment based on being on I-55 and close to Sardis. Could be wrong. I am also still very partial to Coast and the PB, though.
Interesting and surprising that Oktibbeha, Clay, and Lowndes are all down.
I don't doubt that - absorbing Memphis creep.
Our state needs population growth. We need it in the small towns and we need it in the core of our only metro area.
Alabama
Tennessee
Arkansas
all with population growth. MS and LA lost population over last few years.
Alabama
Tennessee
Arkansas
all with population growth. MS and LA lost population over last few years.
Am I the only one who doesn't see the counties listed? I see all the line items for each county but the field where county name should be is blank.
Regardless, from what I saw there's like 10-12 counties with growth and 70+ with decline. Sad.
I'm really hoping the remote work option sticks long enough for rural MS to become attractive. Biggest issue will be reliable broadband but I hoped starlink would solve that problem.
Our country has a major issue with citification or whatever the term is and MS is on the major losing end. Remote work will be a big savior for a while, if it continues to grow.
might be too many other favors at play to allow remote work to take hold but I hope it can break through. It's the future, just not sure how much pain we'll go though before we get there.
Regardless, from what I saw there's like 10-12 counties with growth and 70+ with decline. Sad.
I'm really hoping the remote work option sticks long enough for rural MS to become attractive. Biggest issue will be reliable broadband but I hoped starlink would solve that problem.
Our country has a major issue with citification or whatever the term is and MS is on the major losing end. Remote work will be a big savior for a while, if it continues to grow.
might be too many other favors at play to allow remote work to take hold but I hope it can break through. It's the future, just not sure how much pain we'll go though before we get there.
Remote working will slowly decrease in the coming years. It’ll still be around to a certain extent, but business / business owners are starting to realize it’s not a long term solution
Funny story about the Mecca called “Oxford”. A friend moved back to MS to live there with his family due to being closer to family and cost-of-living. He left Nashville to do this. A year later, he’s back. He said the COL benefit wasn’t worth having to deal with the “country club” mentality of living in that town. They’re Ole Miss grads. I just grinned and shook my head when he said that.
DeSoto has been positive for growth since the 4-laned Goodman Road in 1992. That is 30 years worth of growth. Now there are areas of DeSoto where you better wear a bullet proof vest. DeSoto Village, where I grew up is seriously sketchy. 25 square miles of zero lot line subdivision. Reminds me of the vertical ghetto in the new Judge Dread movie.
Marshall County. It has already begun.
Improve teacher pay and district funding for public schools.
Implement Universal Preschool access at the statewide level.
I could add a list of things, but none of it will realistically change and the two things listed above would be one of the biggest drivers of change over a generation.
You're right. However 4 of the desoto county schools are undesirable. Once Lewisburg, Hernando reach 2,000 kids. Then they build out cockrum and the new school there....
So yeah. My estimate is way under. I say 20 years and Tate becomes the new place to be.
That's not how it works. Decent, working people move there, to be farther 'out'. Then the schools get better. Good in, good out. Bad in, bad out.
A school is neither good nor bad. It's totally dependent on students. If enough decent, working families decide they want cheaper and more land, or whatever, farther away from Memphis, then the schools in Tate County would get better.
It just so happens I stumbled upon this youtube recently. I will link it. But it is just a guy riding through the towns on highway 3. He starts in Lambert and heads north to Crenshaw. Why he picked that particular area......I don't know. I am only familiar with this area of the delta, Ive never been south of Clarksdale in the delta........so I don't know if this particular is the worse of the delta.
Anyways, the stats are the only interesting part.......all these places have lost half of their population in the last 10-20 years. But not surprising since the Farming industry has much better technology and doesn't need as much manual labor. Therefore... no jobs in these areas.
Anyways, the stats are the only interesting part.......all these places have lost half of their population in the last 10-20 years. But not surprising since the Farming industry has much better technology and doesn't need as much manual labor. Therefore... no jobs in these areas.
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I’d be REAL interested to see how that works in my home county.
The very heavily majority African American school district where I hail from has an academic-rated Class A high school.
Shocked me.
In a good way.
It wasn’t thought of as being too good back when I attended the late (possibly) lamented private school in the same town.
But Class A rating now — very nice.
But will a majority African American school at the highest level of state rank attract people?
Huge question.
But it’s not as if Jasper County has much else to offer.
Improving teacher pay and district funding would do basically nothing to help population growth. There are probably fewer than 50k teachers in Mississippi. Even if every teacher with an alternative certification was pushed out of school be degreed teachers that otherwise would have lived in another state, that won't move the needle.
For school spending, there are probably some schools that would be better with more spending, but most of our good schools aren't good and bad schools aren't bad because of the amount of money they do or don't have. It's all basically SES of the students' families and to a lesser extent, the community at large.
Universal preschool, if we did it in a way that reasonably affluent people felt comfortable sending their kids there (spoiler, we won't do it that way), would be a huge boon to working families with young kids. Not sure if it would move the population needle though because I don't think many people are going to plan around that. Even if you have three kids, paid preschool would cover at most 6 years of daycare costs. Pretty significant, but not something most people are going to be thinking about when they select a place to live.
If we went big on universal school choice with a voucher system, it would at least make Jackson affordable and practical (assuming reliable water and trash service eventually comes back) for families to live there. It would make a lot of Mississippi with poor public schools much more desirable. Give a chance to places like the Delta where they don't have a lot of jobs that can support paying for private school for multiple children.
I may be wrong, but I think you can get an A rating now based on improvement? And can still be behind but the school gets credit for showing that they are moving in the right direction. Which is really good to judge school leadership off of, but not necessarily what parents are interested in.
I seem to recall it was all strictly by the numbers.
Let me see if I can find those spreadsheets on the state department of education’s site again.
Certainly some chicken and egg here but I'd lean with DCD on this one from my experience moving around and my retirement back to Starkville. Goes without saying that schools and their "reputation" are a BFD to those with kids and arguably THE criteria for growth and development. Obviously way past any worry about "schools" but it's been interesting to watch the dynamics even here in cosmopolitan Starkville of SHS v SA v SCS.
Only 17 counties with a positive population increase and a whopping 63 counties with a decrease in population. Doesn't bode well for our state. Also, Harrison County not too far from being the biggest county in the state overtaking Hinds.
It matters to those without kids too. Practically nobody wants to take on the liquidity risk of a large investment (house) with a market limited to just people who don't have kids (i.e. may not be as concerned about the schools system).
Starkville has gotten better. And it makes sense because of the growth. And of course if SA didn't exist, SHS would suddenly get better. But I'm not anti-private school, so not advocating that.
But the phenomena you're talking about comes well after a boom has started. Then, of course the hivemind is attracted to the good schools, for obvious reasons, like you and @horshack.sixpack about property values.
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If we're doing anecdotal stories, I have 3-4 friends who moved to Oxford during COVID from Memphis metro and are able to work remotely. They're happy with their decision; they live in a small, safe town with above average amenities for its size and I haven't heard any of them mention anything about a specific "mentality" of the populace, which would seem to be pretty hard to pin down for obvious reasons.
From my own experience, the times that I've spent in Oxford coming back from out of state feel pretty much like any other Mississippi town. The Wal-Mart is a Wal-Mart, the chain restaurants are about the same, there is no shortage of vape/liquor/fast food options and there are plenty of country folks who come in from around Oxford to work.
I met up with friends in Starkville this weekend and, other than being harder to get to/weirder town layout, the towns feel pretty similar to me.
Desoto continuing to increase. My son bought a new house in Nesbit and 3 other families.....ALL from California just moved in to new homes around him. He said they love it. They doubled/tripled the sq. footage of their homes and still came away with about a half million in their pockets with a fully paid for new house.
Id be interested to hear from Lowndes county people. Lowndes(Columbus) seems to be a mini Shelby(Memphis) situation with folks moving to the suburbs (Caledonia/New Hope) and leaving town. However, I am sure everyone still uses town. The poplulation is staying the same.
Columbus' downtown seems to have more local restaurants than back in my day (70s-90s). Other parts/shopping have changed but..... even back in my day, New Hope was growing, Caledonia small but Caledonia seems to have really grown. However, I haven't spent more than a day there since the late 90s. I guess the manufacturing sector leaving for Mexico is what stifled Columbus' growth in the 90s.
This is relevant to MSU as Lowndes County is a feeder of students.
Columbus' downtown seems to have more local restaurants than back in my day (70s-90s). Other parts/shopping have changed but..... even back in my day, New Hope was growing, Caledonia small but Caledonia seems to have really grown. However, I haven't spent more than a day there since the late 90s. I guess the manufacturing sector leaving for Mexico is what stifled Columbus' growth in the 90s.
This is relevant to MSU as Lowndes County is a feeder of students.
These things you mention will certainly help, but they aren't going to be primary drivers to overall population growth....We increased the percentage of teacher pay last year higher than any other state in the union, and just added another $180 Million to our education budget on Saturday (yes, two days ago)....these things help....Personally, I dont agree with government throwing more and more money in certain areas and expecting things to change drastically.....example: medicaid expansion needs to happen, but its not going to keep rural hospitals open.
A sad reality for tax loving socialists is that you have Texas, Tennessee, and Florida eliminating state income taxes and Arkansas and Alabama toying with the idea (along with MS)....that is a big economic driver whether you like it or not....if we could find a reliable way to eliminate our state income tax, that would help losing folks to neighboring states. (i know a family who lived and worked in east memphis who moved to desoto county for two years thinking it would lower her cost of living who subsequently moved back bc it was costing them more).
Another reality is giving tax breaks to attract businesses and jobs does indeed work. However we are competing with tax breaks and no income tax in TN to our north and it is working well for them, which is why we are talking about eliminating our income tax.
Personally, i like what MS is doing to get out in front of this, and they are aware of the pop decline, but it doesn't happen overnight. Our job training certificates with high schools and JUCO's are working. The state just approved hiring 50 new career coaches throughout MS just recently bc it is working so well.
Toyota in Blue Springs is offering $120K starting pay for kids straight out of high school that get their 9 month certificate in certain areas.
I just wish government worked faster and we could eliminate petty politics.
Indeed, no argument here and further reinforces "school rep" is generally the first step. I will say as this is my last house, all of this is something for my daughter to worry about.
It only works if no one else is doing it, as you alluded to. But when everyone is doing it, it does nothing but give a handout to large corps at the expense of small companies trying to compete with them.
I don't think so. It's been pulled back already, and the pendulum is swinging back to more remote work as employees continue to prefer it and employers are getting smarter about it.
I think a good long term solution is for employers to offer it like PTO, that your time increases with service. So your new employees will be in the office to learn, but your experienced ones that don't need that can WFH more. Plus this incentivizes loyalty and not job switching, which helps employers. That and/or tie it to raises, where employees can opt to decline a raise and take WFH time instead.
I'm looking for a place in Starkville right now myself. Any area with high speed internet can grow. Oxford hasn't cornered the market on the internet. And have you seen the real estate prices in Starkville? Tons of half a million dollar homes.
We moved to Oxford in 2015 to escape the city of Jackson (I married an ole miss girl)....Oxford is growing and growing fast...seems like i meet someone new who just moved here every day....The last 3 people who moved into my neighborhood moved here from Clarksdale, MS - farm family-, Denver, Colorado- too expensive to retire they said, and Jackson --no explanation needed.
I am not sure if I believe what that guy said about country club mentality in Oxford either....naturally most of the folks here are ole miss fans, but you would be shocked at the amount of folks here who didnt go to school at UM. The amount of MSU folks/grads who live here would shock you too. Really the only time it gets unbearable are home football game weekends and around graduation....that's when all the bat siht crazy fans are here...that does suck. The locals for the most part dont give AF.
there are three schools : Lafayette, Oxford, and Regents. All three are great schools, and growing.
The cost of living is probably comparable with the growing areas of the coast. A former co worker of mine moved here at Xmas from Spokane, WA (wife got into the PHD program) and they were shocked at how expensive things are around here....they thought they would be getting a cost of living increase.
I work all over the state of MS, and folks don't believe me when I say there isn't much difference between 2023 Starkville and Oxford except for one thing: Perception.....that's got to change.
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