Michigan’s largest city is still losing people, but at a much slower rate than in the past, according to the latest yearly data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Some thought 2017 would be the year Detroit finally reversed its decades-long population bleed.
But apparently, that didn’t happen. Detroit’s population was down again from 2016, just slightly, to an estimate 673,104 people.
Still, what was once a flood of population loss over more than five decades has now slowed to a trickle. That’s less than a 1% drop from 2016, when the estimate put Detroit’s population at around 675,000.
Some demographic experts caution against taking too much away from annual population estimates, saying we won’t know the whole story until after the next full census takes place in 2020.
Some Detroit suburbs did post gains, especially at the edges of the metro area, in places like Canton Township and Macomb Township.
Elsewhere in the state, Grand Rapids grew more 1% from 2016 to 2017, as did Lansing. Those cities’ population estimates now stand at 198,829 and 116,986, respectively.
Overall, Michigan continued a slow growth pattern. The latest estimate puts the total number of Michigan residents at 9,962,311.
