By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
AUG.11, 2023 | For years, Gwinnett officials and even its citizens have been realizing that with the population growing in the county, Gwinnett would some day total 1,000,000 people.
Now based on the April 1, 2023, population estimates by the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC), released this week, Gwinnett now has 1 million residents. We figure that the 1,000,000th person moved into the county on June 15, 2023. One of your new neighbors may be that person!
The ARC’s population estimate as of April 1, 2023, shows that Gwinnett on that date had 997,212 people. That was up from the 2022 population estimate by 13,510 people from the 983,702 residents of 2022.
Gwinnett’s change in population for 2023 is only 1.4 percent, but the total number of people moving in is second in the 11 county Metro Atlanta population area at 13,510.
Here’s how we came about that when the county reached a million people. With the new population totals as of April 1, Gwinnett needed only 2,788 more residents to reach 1 million citizens, according to the ARC figures. With its past year’s growth at 13,510 people, that averaged out to 1,125 per month. If that same growth has continued, it would take 2.4 months to reach the million figure.
That means that the date Gwinnett County became 1,000,000 residents was June 15, 2023.
And if that same growth rate still applies, with today being August 11, Gwinnett now totals 1,002,140 people!
Most Gwinnett residents won’t be astounded by that figure. They see more crowded conditions everywhere, and see people moving in all the time. The single-family and the multi-family housing continues to be red-hot, and as they build more housing units, more people fill them, so one million people makes sense!
All these newcomers gotta go somewhere!
Fulton County is the most populated county in Georgia, now having 1,105,670 residents. It also grew the fastest in the last year as it counted 18,500 more citizens, a 1.7 percent growth rate.
Why so much growth in Fulton? It’s because Fulton is a big county geographically, the largest in Metro Atlanta, with 534 square miles, compared to 437 square miles for Gwinnett. And it has lots of vacant land still, primarily in south Fulton County, while its north Fulton area is filling fastest around the towns of Alpharetta and Milton. Remember, too, that Fulton is today made up from three counties, when two counties went bankrupt during the Depression. Milton County (on the north) and Campbell County on the south were consolidated into Fulton.
About 45 years ago, doing what many from around here do, our family had a big trip, as we like to say, “Out West.” We traveled up through Kentucky and Missouri, on to Kansas (I thought we would never get out of Kansas), via Colorado, Wyoming and Idaho and on to Oregon, before heading back on a more southerly route.
In those days, Gwinnett had about 150,000 people. While driving in Colorado, we all became excited when we spotted another automobile from Gwinnett County! Since then, I suspect more local travelers to distant parts of our country see more and more cars with a Gwinnett license plate. It might not even excite them, as it becomes more common. But even last year, in a parking lot of the Bucksport bridge across the Penobscot River, in what is uncrowded Maine, we saw another vehicle with a Gwinnett license plate.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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