Fastest Growing Cities In The United States [2026]

One could argue home prices are the best single metric for determining how great a city is, given how supply and demand work.

But, like happiness, money can’t tell you everything about a city. Instead, look at cities with people kicking down doors to get a chance to live there.

We are talking about the fastest-growing cities in America. These hot pockets of demand are best to snatch up while still possible. We used Saturday Night Science to measure what cities have had the highest one-year growth rate from the Census data.

For reference, America’s annual population growth rate last year was 0.76%, up to 334,922,499 people. Any city growing faster than that beats the US average.

No. 1 fastest growing city in America

Mobile, AL

203,416 peopleSnackAbility 6/10up 4

6/10

Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers

No. 2 fastest growing city in America

New Braunfels, TX

104,643 peopleSnackAbility 8/10down 1

8/10

Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers

No. 3 fastest growing city in America

Conroe, TX

102,360 peopleSnackAbility 6/10down 1

6/10

Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers

No. 4 fastest growing city in America

Port St. Lucie, FL

232,491 peopleSnackAbility 8/10down 1

8/10

Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers

No. 5 fastest growing city in America

Goodyear, AZ

107,645 peopleSnackAbility 8/10down 1

8/10

Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers

No. 6 fastest growing city in America

Cape Coral, FL

215,536 peopleSnackAbility 8/10up 2

8/10

Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers

No. 7 fastest growing city in America

Frisco, TX

219,304 peopleSnackAbility 9/10

9/10

Proving the basic concepts of economics, Frisco shows that the fastest growing city in the US costs a bunch to live in also — it’s one of the richest cities in the country according to our data.

In terms of population growth, 112.59% growth in a 14 year period comes out to a 5.89% compound annual growth rate. That’s about 8x faster than the US as a whole.

Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers

No. 8 fastest growing city in America

Meridian, ID

130,138 peopleSnackAbility 9/10down 2

9/10

For Idaho, Meridian counts as a major metropolis. With 130138.0 residents, it ranks among the state’s biggest cities. As it turns out, it also represents a boom town, with its population climbing 88.73% in a 10-year span.

Why are these people flocking to Meridian? Well, quietly, this has become a regional economic hub. The town provides a home for both the state police and Blue Cross of Idaho. It also has major cultural attractions, such as the Meridian Symphony Orchestra.

Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers

No. 9 fastest growing city in America

Mckinney, TX

210,600 peopleSnackAbility 8/10up 2

8/10

There’s a pretty big drop between the 2nd and 3rd fastest growing cities as McKinney has ‘only’ had a 77.49% growth. That’s still good for 6.5x the American average.

Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers

No. 10 fastest growing city in America

Denton, TX

152,866 peopleSnackAbility 7/10

7/10

Data | Crime | Cost of living | Movers

The receipts

Compare the top ten

Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is the United States’s statewide median.

City Population growth vs US

1 Mobile 0 —

2 New Braunfels 0 —

3 Conroe 0 —

4 Port St. Lucie 0 —

5 Goodyear 0 —

6 Cape Coral 0 —

7 Frisco 0 —

8 Meridian 0 —

9 Mckinney 0 —

10 Denton 0 —

City Population vs US

1 Mobile 203,416 —

2 New Braunfels 104,643 —

3 Conroe 102,360 —

4 Port St. Lucie 232,491 —

5 Goodyear 107,645 —

6 Cape Coral 215,536 —

7 Frisco 219,304 —

8 Meridian 130,138 —

9 Mckinney 210,600 —

10 Denton 152,866 —

City Population in 2010 vs US

1 Mobile 195,619 —

2 New Braunfels 54,072 —

3 Conroe 53,270 —

4 Port St. Lucie 155,004 —

5 Goodyear 57,869 —

6 Cape Coral 149,787 —

7 Frisco 103,158 —

8 Meridian 68,953 —

9 Mckinney 118,652 —

10 Denton 109,192 —

City Population added vs US

1 Mobile 18,319 —

2 New Braunfels 5,943 —

3 Conroe 5,384 —

4 Port St. Lucie 12,038 —

5 Goodyear 4,754 —

6 Cape Coral 9,149 —

7 Frisco 9,066 —

8 Meridian 5,273 —

9 Mckinney 8,286 —

10 Denton 5,879 —

On the map

Where the fastest growing cities in America are

1 Mobile
2 New Braunfels
3 Conroe
4 Port St. Lucie
5 Goodyear
6 Cape Coral
7 Frisco
8 Meridian
9 Mckinney
10 Denton

Saturday Night Science

Methodology: How We Determined The Fastest Growing Cities in The US

There are a couple of ways to measure how fast a city is growing.

We used Saturday Night Science to study the one-year change for this analysis, the most recently available data from the American Community Survey.

% Change Year Over Year
% Change This Decade
Absolute change in population

We also limited the analysis to the 325 biggest cities in the US with over 100,000 people.

We then ranked each city from largest change to smallest change. Mobile, the fastest growing city, led the way.

We updated this article for 2026. This article is our eleventh time ranking the fastest-growing cities in America.

The full list