A briefing on local and regional growth trends presented to the Airport Advisory Commission on July 9 by city demographer Lila Valencia found the city’s growth is at “historically low levels” since 2020, according to the proposed 2025-26 city budget.
Between 2010 and 2020, Austin grew annually at a rate of 4%, Valencia said. Since 2020, the rate of growth is now closer to about 1% annually. Valencia said that populations can change through births, deaths or migration.
“When we look at these components of change, what we’re seeing is pretty much stability in natural change, or births minus deaths, but we’re seeing big differences in migration,” Valencia said.
Valencia said there are two types of migration: international and domestic. Domestic migration includes people who are either moving in from other states or people who are moving from other parts of Texas into the Austin region.
Domestic migrants in the city peaked at 48,000 in 2020, Valencia said. In 2024, that figure decreased to 14,000.
“Domestic migration is often tied to economic issues, and we have seen that there has been slower job growth in the Austin area as well,” Valencia said. “When those job numbers start to go down, then we start to see a similar pattern in domestic migration.”
Valencia said international migration outpaced domestic migration over the past few years. The figure grew from 3,500 international migrants in 2021 to over 28,000 in 2024.
According to the proposed budget, if domestic migration continues dropping and federal immigration restrictions decrease the amount of international migration, Austin could experience population decline in the near future, and growth in the region could slow further.
“When we start to take this new scenario where we might experience population decline and even (slowing) growth, I think what is important to keep in mind is that we didn’t exactly keep up with the pace of population growth in the last few decades,” Valencia said.
Valencia said this slowdown is an opportunity to lay the foundation for services and programs the community needs, such as infrastructure, water availability and housing stock.
“We needed a slowdown in the city,” said Heather Way, clinical professor at Texas Law and director of the Housing Policy Clinic. “Over the past two decades, we’ve seen such rapid levels of growth that our housing stock just could not keep on top of it.”
Luis Urrieta, a professor of cultural studies in education, said that growth does not always need to be the goal.
“Growth always seems to be the goal,” Urrieta said. “We should also think about people’s well-being, healthy and safe communities, affordability (and) living in harmony.”
