INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana’s four largest cities are in
the midst of big population shifts, with the state capital leading the
way as development in downtown Indianapolis attracts an influx of new
residents, a report that Indiana University demographers released
Thursday shows.
Researchers with the Bloomington-based Indiana
Business Research Center found that Indianapolis and Fort Wayne saw
average annual population increases from 2010 to 2013 that were
significantly larger than they had witnessed the previous decade, while
Evansville and South Bend stemmed an exodus of residents.
The findings came from researchers’ analysis of new U.S. Census Bureau population estimates.
IU
demographer Matthew Kinghorn said Indianapolis added an average of
about 7,200 residents per year from 2010 to 2013, when its population
reached nearly 843,400 and made it the nation’s 12th largest city behind
Austin, Texas.
Indianapolis’ average annual growth from 2010-2013
was twice its 2000-2010 pace, said Kinghorn, who attributes the surge
in part to the growing attractiveness of downtown Indianapolis as a
place for young professionals and others to live.
"Indianapolis is just on a bit of a roll right now," he said.
Indianapolis
Downtown Inc. spokesman Bob Schultz said a building boom has boosted
the city’s residential units by 89 percent in the last five years and
another 3,500 units will open by 2017.
The development group
researched who’s moving into downtown and found 38 percent are coming to
the city from outside of Indiana and most are millennials — the
children of baby boomers who came of age in the new millennium — and
empty nesters. Another 26 percent were moving to downtown from counties
outside of Marion County.
Schultz said young professionals who
work at IUPUI just west of downtown or in the city’s growing life
sciences industry are drawn downtown because of the shopping,
restaurants, bars and mass transit options. Many don’t have cars, he
said.
"They want to live in an urban core, where the action is, and they want to be close to where they
work," he said.
Indiana’s
second-largest city, Fort Wayne, had essentially experienced flat
population growth from 2000 to 2010, but the IU report found its
population grew at an average annual pace of nearly 900 residents from
2010 to 2013, when it had about 256,500 residents.
The
northeastern Indiana city’s economy is on the upswing, spurring downtown
projects, said Mary Tyndall, spokeswoman for Fort Wayne’s community
development office.
And big local employer Ash Brokerage recently
announced it will build its new headquarters in downtown Fort Wayne as
part of a larger $98 million development set to open in 2016 with condos
and parking garages, Tyndall said.
"Our downtown is really
booming. There’s a lot of momentum for Fort Wayne and certainly the
economy has picked back up over the last three, four years," she said.
Evansville,
which had a 2013 population of 120,310 residents, grew by about 80
residents per year in 2010-2013, compared to an average annual decline
of 420 residents from 2000 to 2010.
South Bend continued losing
population during 2010-2013 at a pace of nearly 45 people a year, but
that’s a big improvement from the nearly 700 residents lost annually
from 2000 to 2010, the IU report found.