Worcester Co. barely grows, while Middlesex Co. leads the state
Grant Welker
Construction last month on hundreds of new apartments on Front Street in Worcester. Downtown Worcester is growing, but the county as a whole has mostly stood still.
Worcester County's population grew by less than 2,000 in a 12-month period ending last July, according to new U.S. Census data, only about half the rate of one year prior.
Middlesex County, on the other hand, added nearly 9,000 residents, an average of about 24 people a day. The county, which stretches from Framingham to Cambridge to Lowell, was the state's fastest growing.
Both Worcester and Middlesex County — and the state as a whole — relied heavily on immigrants for population growth.
More than 4,000 immigrants moved to Worcester County in the latest 12-year period. If not for those newcomers, the county's population would have dropped. An estimated 2,775 moved out of the county to elsewhere in the United States.
The same holds true for longer-term population trends.
In the last 10 years, newcomers from other countries totaled nearly 22,000. In comparison, more than 11,000 moved out of Worcester County.
Half of the growth in the past decade has also been attributed to so-called natural growth, when births outpace deaths. Natural growth in Worcester County was nearly 12,000 in that 10-year period.
The period from July 2015 to July 2016 had the slowest growth in the past five years, with only 1,971 moving in. Only a year prior, that number was 3,991.
Even Suffolk County, which includes Boston, had more people move out than in last year, with growth carried by more than 9,000 immigrants.
Across Massachusetts, the story was much the same.
Immigrants played an even larger role in the statewide population growth. An estimated nearly 41,000 newcomers moved into Massachusetts from other countries, compared to an overall growth of only nearly 28,000 last year. As with Worcester County, more people (nearly 26,000) moved elsewhere in the United States, compared to those who moved in (15,000).
The statewide population passed 6.8 million, up 27,539, or 0.4 percent for the year. Since 2010, the population is up by 264,150, or 4 percent.
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