New United States Census Bureau statistics show that housing development across swaths of the South and Midwest has spiked since 2015, with counties throughout the regions seeing gains of hundreds, if not thousands, of units.
Counties in Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, North Dakota, Florida, and Indiana all saw the largest increases in housing units. Of the top-growing counties, many are so-called “exburbs,” or sprawling, low-density residential areas that border metropolitan areas. The second-largest-growing county, for example, is Osceola County, Florida, which sits adjacent to Orlando and a few dozen miles from Tampa.
The growth for these counties all fell in a range between 3 and 4.7 percent with the exception of McKenzie County, North Dakota—the area with the biggest comparative growth—which saw a 12.5 percent increase in the number of its housing units over 2015.
The report didn’t offer good news for all counties, however. Hundreds of counties lost more units than were added (though none lost more than 1 percent); for the units that were added, it’s not clear how many are considered affordable.
A “unit” includes single-family homes, townhouses, apartments, trailers, or single rooms. The data is current as of July of 2016.
