Jefferson County’s population grew after three years of decline, and the Birmingham metro area experienced its strongest influx of residents in several years, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

In both cases, international migration was largely responsible for the population gains between July 1, 2023, and July 1, 2024.

In the state’s larger metropolitan areas – excepting Huntsville – a long-term trend of people leaving the central county for the suburbs through domestic migration continued. Jefferson County lost residents at a rate of -2.9 per 1,000 in domestic migration during that period, but gains of 3.6 per 1,000 through international migration offset those losses, an analysis by the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama showed.

Overall, the Birmingham metro area remains the largest metro area in the state, with nearly 1.2 million people. It gained more than 6,000 residents in 2023-24, over half of whom are international immigrants.

While that growth is the most the Birmingham metro area has seen in a while, the Huntsville metro area gained twice as many residents and has grown more than any other in the state since 2020. The Huntsville metro has added more than 50,000 residents in that time, compared to Birmingham’s 12,000.

The metro areas with the most population growth were Huntsville, Daphne-Fairhope-Foley, Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, respectively.

“The (Birmingham) metro has held its own, though it has not experienced the kind of growth you see in other southeastern centers or in Huntsville, for instance,” Thomas Spencer, senior research associate for the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama, said. “But Birmingham also has a lot of potential in that the lower cost of living that is enjoyed here is increasingly attractive to people who’ve been priced out of the big cities.”

A factor at play in most counties in Alabama is negative natural change, which means deaths are outnumbering births. Demographers have long known this challenge was looming due to the aging Baby Boomer generation, and the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated it, Spencer said. Deaths began outnumbering births in Alabama in 2020.

Jefferson County was one of only 15 counties statewide to increase its population through natural change, albeit slightly, at a rate of 0.3 per 1,000. Other counties among this group are those that tend to have younger populations, including Tuscaloosa, Madison, Limestone, Montgomery and Baldwin.

Without international migration, 30 counties rather than 24 would have experienced population decreases between July 2023 and July 2024. Sixty counties saw net positive growth from international migration, and 42 counties had net gains from domestic migration – people moving in from other counties or states.

International migration offset population losses not only in Jefferson County but in Mobile County, as well, reduced losses in Montgomery County and padded gains in Madison and Baldwin counties.

This report did not go into detail about where the international migration is coming from, but Hispanic immigration has fueled most of the out-of-country influx into Alabama as a whole in recent years.

The suburban and rural counties in the Birmingham metro are among those that benefited from domestic migration. While Jefferson County lost 2.9% of its population in domestic migration, Bibb County got a 16.9% bump through people moving in from elsewhere in the state. Chilton County had a 12.2% increase through domestic migration; Blount County a 7.1% increase; St. Clair a 5.8% increase; and Shelby County a 3.1% increase.

While other factors play a role, housing is a major influencer of the nationwide shift toward the suburbs, especially in Jefferson County, Spencer said.

“People move to where there is new housing being built,” Spencer said. “By the 1960s, Birmingham was kind of built out. It had sprawled across the valley. But as the interstates were put in and connected, it gave people the ability to live farther out.”

Regardless of race, when people advance economically, they move to places with newer housing, Spencer said. That can leave vacant housing and distressed neighborhoods in urban centers.

“In these large cities, what you have seen over the years is the cycle of the first-generation immigrants come in and they take some of that housing that is older and they fix it up, and they live there until they’re able to move to the suburbs,” he said. “As we have sprawled, some of the Birmingham neighborhoods and some of the other communities in Jones Valley have lost population, and that leaves holes in the social fabric that need to be repaired.”

Spencer said the census data backs up the connection and shared destiny PARCA has persistently studied between suburbs and their central counties.

“The economies are linked, and you don’t have thriving suburbs without a thriving center city and vice versa,” he said. “So, I think we all have to invest together in opportunities and addressing problems.”

Is growth always good?

Spencer said that while the mantra has typically been the more population growth the better, because it creates more economic activity, a different focus could be more effective.

“I think it’s important for us to improve the quality of life of the people who are here and address underlying conditions,” he said. “And when you’re doing that, you end up creating your best advertisement for your community and your best potential to stimulate growth.”