News articles yesterday wrote about the year-over-year and five year changes in Allegheny County’s and the metro area’s population and noted not much has changed metro-wide and that the County saw a decline in population for the first time since 2010. This is a reversal of the previous year-over-year changes since the 2010 Census where County population increased 0.30%, 0.24%, and 0.21% from 2010 to 11, 2011 to 12, and 2012 to 13, respectively, but quite a difference from population changes in the County from 2000 to 2006.
Of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties (we will count Philadelphia as a county here) Allegheny County grew 0.61% from 2010 to 2014, which ranks it 19th in population change. It was one of 25 counties to report a higher population in 2014 than it had in 2010. The increase in Allegheny County is sandwiched between Delaware County (0.70%) and Tioga County (0.59%). The net 7,458 population increase in Allegheny County, in numerical terms, is roughly the same as Cumberland County (7,809) and Lehigh County (7,651).
Compared to the “large population counties”, by this measure looking at the seven counties (including Allegheny) had a 2014 population of 500,000 or more (Chester County entered the group in 2011) all increased in population and Allegheny was 6th out of 7 (Bucks County increased 0.22%). Both Lancaster and Chester Counties grew by more than 2.5% from 2010-14.
