Region’s mild climate, quality of life attracts newcomers
ASHEVILLE — Western North Carolina’s largest city grew faster over the past decade than the state average, according to 2010 U.S. census data released Wednesday.
Asheville’s population has increased 21 percent since 2000, rising to 83,393 people. Buncombe County increased 15.5 percent to 238,318 people.
As the South’s second-fasting-growing state, after Texas, North Carolina’s population increased 18 percent to 9.5 million people.
The growth, state Data Center coordinator Bob Coats said, is part of a trend of people leaving the Northeast for better climates and jobs in the South.
Asheville business leaders attributed the city’s growth to the region offering a quality of life that baby boomers seek in retirement or near-retirement.
Many homebuyers are coming from the Northeast, said Billie Greene, broker in charge at the Asheville office of Prudential Lifestyle Realty.
“And Florida is still around,” she said. “It’s a quality of life and the climate that we have. We don’t have severe summers and winters.”
Proximity to national parks and cities like Charlotte and Atlanta also are attractive to newcomers, Greene said.
Charlotte continued its reign as North Carolina’s largest city with a 35.2 percent gain to 731,424. Raleigh grew 46.3 percent to 403,892 people.
The state’s Hispanic population increased 111 percent, going from fewer than 400,000 to 800,120, moving North Carolina to 11th in the nation in total Latino residents.
The number of non-Hispanic white residents grew 13 percent, and the non-Hispanic black population grew 18 percent to 2 million. North Carolina has the sixth-highest black population in the nation.
“Classic North Carolina is a spread-out, decentralized state of small cities, small towns, small factories and small farms,” said Ferrel Guillory, director of the Program on Public Policy at the University of North Carolina. “We are not that anymore and haven’t been that in a while. We have become a more muscular metro state.”
Guillory pointed to growth not only in the major cities but also in counties near them as evidence that the Tar Heel State is becoming more metropolitan.
