It probably comes as no surprise: Once again the fastest-growing communities in Arizona are on the far outskirts of the two major metropolitan areas.
It is true that of the more than 97,000 people who decided to make Arizona their home in the year ending July 1, nearly one out of every eight landed in Phoenix. That brought the city's population to over 1.7 million, according to new estimates by the Arizona Commerce Authority.
But that represented a year-over-year growth rate of less than 0.7% — much slower than the 1.3% average for the entire state.
By contrast, the 3,291 people moving into Apache Junction approached an 8% annual increase. That was trailed slightly by Queen Creek at close to 7.7% and Maricopa grew by nearly 6.7%.
Builders frame a new home in Queen Creek, one of the fastest-growing areas in Arizona.
Some Pinal County communities also beat the state's growth rate, including Coolidge at 5.7%, Casa Grande at 5.3%, Florence by nearly 3.7% and Eloy by 2.8%
Also on the top of the growth chart are communities west of Phoenix, with Buckeye checking in at 5.3%, Goodyear at 5.0%, Surprise at 4.2% and Avondale at 4.0%.
Those areas are growing so fast that state lawmakers have set aside millions of dollars to alleviate existing and potential future traffic jams for daily commuters.
That includes widening stretches of Interstate 10 that serve them, one north of Casa Grande and the other adding more lanes to the freeway going out to Buckeye. An entirely new freeway, State Route 30, is being planned parallel to I-10 to serve Buckeye, Goodyear and Avondale.
In the Tucson area, nearly 4,000 new residents boosted Marana's population by 6.3%. Sahuarita grew by 1.9%, which still bested the statewide average.
Tucson maintained its slot as the state's second-largest city, adding 682 people in the past year, just a 0.1% increase, to bring its population to 557,901.
But Mesa is moving to catch up, with 4,499 new residents. That puts its population within 29,000 of Tucson's.
Gilbert, which a decade ago was among the hottest growth cities, remains the fourth largest community in the state at 294,689 residents, though its growth rate has slowed to 0.9%. Chandler is not far behind at 288,299 residents, with its population increase of 0.7% also lagging the state rate.
Scottsdale's growth is down to 0.4%, with the community now at 251,000.
Glendale, however, did better than the state's 1.3% growth rate, clocking in at 1.8% and boosting its population to more than 265,000. So did Peoria at 1.5%, now with 206,000 residents, and even land-locked Tempe with 196,000 residents after posting a 1.4% year-over-year increase.
Elsewhere in the state, the border community of San Luis added more than 2,000 people, enough to boost its population by 5.1%.
Prescott Valley, which years ago overtook Prescott in size, continued to grow its lead, boosting its population by another 2.2%, compared to less than 0.7% for Prescott.
Among the other communities outpacing the state's 1.3% growth rate are Colorado City, Wickenburg, Snowflake, Thatcher, Douglas, Pima and Bullhead City.
On the losing end, Bisbee saw its population shrink by 1.5%. Also leading the list of communities with negative numbers are Winslow, Springerville, Jerome, St. Johns, Page, Fredonia and Miami.
