Tennessee Population Growth 2000-2010
[County Growth continued]
Shelby County (Memphis) was the most populous in the state in 2000, and it continued to hold first place in 2010. The population buildup in this area is due to the fact that Memphis is the most important railroad center in the state, the site of a large health services complex, home to a large regional airport, one of the largest distribution centers in the country, the site of a large university and several smaller institutions of higher learning, the headquarters for a number of very large corporations, and a processing center for soybeans, cotton, rice, and other crops that grow in the Mississippi delta. The second, third, and fourth most populous counties in 2000 were Davidson (Nashville), Knox (Knoxville), and Hamilton (Chattanooga), respectively. This rank order did not change from 2000 to 2010.
Although Shelby County was the most populous in 2000 and 2010, it did not gain the most people. The 2010 Census count showed Rutherford County with 80,581 more residents than it had in 2000. In addition to Rutherford, three other counties recorded population gains of 50,000 or more: Davidson with 56,790, Williamson with 56,544, and Knox with 50,194. These counties are among the state's most economically diversified counties. Each is part of a metropolitan statistical area that offers employment opportunities as well as social advantages conducive to population buildup. Also, each is traversed by one or more interstate highways. These factors help explain why counties containing population nodes experienced more growth in 2010.
Size of county was positively related to population growth in Tennessee from 2000 to 2010. Growing counties are among the state's largest, although some of the largest counties experienced relatively slow growth. For example, only one of the four largest counties, Knox, grew as rapidly on a relative basis as the state as a whole. Of the 10 counties in Tennessee with the largest absolute increase in population over the past 10 years, only one, Sevier, had a population of less than 100,000 in 2010.
Growth by Grand Division
Population growth was not equally distributed among the grand divisions of the state from 2000 to 2010. The division experiencing the greatest population growth was middle Tennessee with an 18.0 percent increase, somewhat above the statewide growth rate of 11.5 percent and significantly above the national growth rate of 9.7 percent. East Tennessee was second with a 10.4 percent increase, slightly below the statewide growth. West Tennessee grew by only 4.2 percent during the 10-year period. These proportional differences serve as a reminder that individual regions may perform substantially better or worse than the entire state and that simple generalizations about population growth for a state as diverse as Tennessee should be avoided.
Analysis of census data reveals, as might be expected, that population growth measurements for a single grand division are often not representative of all of its counties. In fact, there seems to be almost as much disparity between the counties of each division as there is between divisions. Several counties or areas of population concentration grew much faster or much slower from 2000 to 2010 than did the division of which they are a part. Many reasons can be hypothesized for these growth differentials. Brief analyses of population growth trends in each of the state's major divisions are provided below.