New Census numbers show Kansas City holding ground, St. Louis metro lagging

Kansas City's rank among America's largest metropolitan areas remains steady, but our sister city across the state is slipping.

New population estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau indicate the St. Louis metro grew ever so slightly from mid-2016 to mid-2017. But that was not enough to keep it from dropping out of the top 20 metro areas.

Kansas City remains the 30th largest metro area in the country. We continue to edge out Austin, Texas; Cleveland; Columbus, Ohio; and Indianapolis. Overall the Kansas City metro grew by more than 22,500 people from mid-2016 to mid-2017.

The Baltimore metro, which had been the 21st largest, basically swapped positions with St. Louis, which had been the ninth largest metro as recently as 1960.

St. Louis' urban core lost more than 4,500 in a year. In fact, reports Stltoday.com, the city has lost more than 10,000 people since the last official Census in 2010. Making up for that loss in the metro area, St. Charles County just to the west grew by about 4,700 people in a year.

The Baltimore metro, by contrast, added more than 97,000 in the same period.

Still, the St. Louis metro's estimated population of 2,807,338 million remains far greater than the Kansas City metro's 2,128,912.

Locally, Johnson County's growth continued to outpace the rest of the area, but it remains far behind Jackson County in total numbers. Cass County continues to outnumber Platte County, but the gap is narrowing.

Specifically:

▪ Jackson County grew by nearly 5,800 people to 698,895.

▪ Johnson County grew by more than 6,400 to 591,178.

▪ Clay County grew by more than 4,100 people to 242,874.

▪ Wyandotte County grew by nearly 1,000 to 165,288.

▪ Cass County grew by more than 900 to 103,724.

▪ Platte County grew by more than 2,500 to 101,187.

▪ Leavenworth County grew by nearly 1,000 to 81,095.

Nationally, Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington grew the most, with more than 146,000 in a year.

Maricopa County, in the Phoenix area, saw the biggest growth among counties, nearly 74,000. It remained the fourth most populous county behind Los Angeles, Cook (Chicago) and Harris (Houston).

The 10 counties that grew the most are all in the South and West, with six of them in Texas.

The top 10 largest metro areas did not change rank. They are New York-Newark-Jersey City, Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell and Boston-Cambridge-Newton.

The national population estimate on Thursday afternoon, according to the Census Bureau, was 327,398,525.

This story was originally published March 22, 2018 at 4:00 PM with the headline "New Census numbers show Kansas City holding ground, St. Louis metro lagging."