Here are the top ten most populated counties in the United States along with a comparison to 1970:
To put my thoughts about each county in a list:
Los Angeles county makes sense and dropped a little bit. I think there is a little more sprawl now into the surrounding areas.
Wow. The Chicago area really fell off. That is an insane drop!
Harris County makes sense - Houston is surprisingly (at least to me) one of the most populated cities in the county now.
Maricopa - retirees.
San Diego area growth seems to fit with all the complaints I hear about housing prices.
Orange county seems like more sprawl.
Miami-Dade is probably getting a lot of ex-New Yorkers…seems like a lot of finance deserters I know ended up there. Don’t blame ‘em!
Dallas is still big and kept up with growth around the country. (Always enjoy my trips down there and people are surprisingly nice to us Yankees. Amazing barbeque.)
Kings county aka Brooklyn is surprising given how expensive it is there. One would think less people means less demand. Perhaps people are fleeing because of prices and less density makes it increasingly attractive?
Riverside county? I guess more Los Angeles sprawl? I can’t really speak to this one as an East Coaster.
One adventure I’ll never forget was taking a road trip from Philadelphia to Los Angeles and then going from San Diego to Vancouver. It’s unreal how big, diverse, and beautiful the U.S. is (and that little bit of Canada!). I definitely plan to do more county-based analysis because there is so much great nuance to these kinds of numbers. Stay tuned!