Census numbers for 2003 show that cities grow when jobs are plentiful and housing costs are relatively low compared with the rest of their regions.
"It's the scramble for value," says Robert Lang, urban expert at Virginia Tech and author of Boomburbs, an upcoming book on large, fast-growing suburbs. "People are finding back doors into the hot places."
The hottest places are still concentrated in the Sun Belt. Since 2000, eight of the 10 fastest-growing cities with more than 100,000 people are suburbs of Phoenix, Los Angeles and Las Vegas: Gilbert, Chandler and Peoria, Ariz.; Rancho Cucamonga, Fontana and Irvine, Calif.; and Henderson and North Las Vegas, Nev. The other two are Port St. Lucie and Cape Coral, Fla.
The hunt for affordable housing also has helped reverse declines in older cities within commuting range of strong job centers. Cities in New Jersey and Connecticut are enjoying some of the spillover from New York's prosperity. Immigrants who are first-time homebuyers often gravitate toward older areas that offer comparatively cheap housing and good transportation to major job markets.
The same trend is unfolding in California, where most growth is away from cities along the coast where housing is expensive. Growth is sweeping inland cities such as Palmdale, Fresno and Bakersfield, where median home prices range from $200,000 to $260,000, compared with $423,000 in Los Angeles and $635,000 in the San Francisco Bay Area.
"Housing affordability is having an incredible effect," says Peter Morrison, demographer at the RAND Corp. "It's driving growth outward."
The numbers also show that:
• Some of the nation's older big cities are losing population after gaining in the 1990s. Chicago, which gained more than 100,000 people in that decade, is now losing. So is Boston. But many of their suburbs are growing as families in search of good schools and cheaper and bigger homes move out. New York, while still growing, has slowed considerably. Cities whose losses slowed in the '90s now are losing at a faster pace, including Detroit, Philadelphia and St. Louis.
• San Antonio has replaced Dallas as the nation's eighth-largest city. "Big D" is landlocked; San Antonio keeps annexing land. "Our focus has not been, 'Let's pass Dallas,' but, 'Let's increase the quality of growth in our city,' " says San Antonio Mayor Ed Garza.
