If 2021 was the year of the small city, 2022 was the year of the large metro in Tennessee. The state’s biggest communities lead population increases last year. We dig in on the new Vintage 2022 Population Estimates for cities and towns released on May 18th.

Most Tennessee counties had a population increase last year. Record levels of domestic migration have even slowed rural population losses. We took a closer look at where the big changes were in 2022 and how the numbers look across the rest of the state.

The way the federal government collects information on race and ethnicity hasn’t changed since 1997, but a combined race and Hispanic ethnicity question and new Middle Eastern North African race category headline a new set of proposed standards.

The southern U.S. saw big population gains last year and so did Tennessee. 81,646 more people moved into the state than moved out of it – a record-level of domestic net migration.

Tennessee saw an unexpected increase in the number of births in 2021. It also saw a jump in the number of deaths. In different ways, both events were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We take close look at what changed in the first two years of the decade.

Although inflation grew sharply in 2021, prices in Tennessee were below the national level. The cost of goods, services and housing were 9.1 percent under the U.S. average. Updated regional price data also shows how affordability of the state’s metro areas breaks down.

2022 population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau showed a notable increase in Tennessee’s population. The new data includes information about the number of people of moving into and out of the state which shows it was a record year for new residents calling Tennessee home.

Urban area boundaries from the 2020 Census will be released on December 29, 2022. This decade’s criteria include a number of important changes that may results in fewer, smaller and potentially lower population areas. We look at what’s changed and how the urban area data are used.

We sat down with Gregg Robinson, former UT graduate, Boyd Center researcher and U.S. Census Bureau demographer to discuss the Tennessee population projections he helped author fifty year ago. He discusses his distinguished career at the bureau and 2020 Census outcomes.

5-year American Community Survey data straight to ArcGIS Pro maps and geodatabases. A new tool from Randy Pullen at the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency gets tract-level American Community Survey data directly into ArcGIS Pro.