New numbers: The Villages and Ocala are among the nation's fastest growing metro areas
Florida had four of the five fastest growing metropolitan areas in the country, in percentage terms, from 2022 to 2023. The metro area that includes The Villages came in at No. 1 on the national list and the Ocala metro was No. 4, according to data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The population in the area that includes The Villages and Wildwood increased by 4.7 percent from July 1, 2022 to July 1, 2023 — specifically, from 144,767 to 151,565.
Population growth in the Ocala metro, which is all of Marion County, was 3.4 percent — from 396,437 to 409,959, according to the census data.
The second fastest growth rate in the country was the Lakeland and Winter Haven metro area at 3.8 percent.
Wildwood’s growth is directly attributable to The Villages. The city of Wildwood is planning to build a parking garage and make other improvements downtown.
“Of the 60,449 units entitled by The Villages south of State Road 44, roughly 17,000 have been constructed or are currently under construction. Approximately 14,700 have been sold and/or occupied," Wildwood spokeswoman Melanie Strickland told the Leesburg Daily Commercial for a recent news story.
The Villages includes a part of Marion County and extends across the Sumter County line to Lake County, where it is building thousands of homes south of Leesburg’s expanding city limits near Florida’s Turnpike. The population of The Villages in 2020 was listed at 81,444.
Ocala was recently named No. 2 on a list of 10 best places in Florida to retire. Ocala easily makes the list because it has the most affordable housing, said Kevin Sheilley, president and CEO of the Ocala Metro Chamber and Economic Partnership.
The survey used data from GoBankingRates to back up its list.
Marion County “also has phenomenal health care,” Sheilley told the Star Banner for a story about the ranking. He also noted that “Ocala is a real, authentic place,” with a history and culture.
U-Haul has listed Ocala as the second-most one-way moving trips for young professionals.
The only area outside of Florida in the Top 5 of the Census Bureau's list of fastest growing metros was the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, area, which grew 3.7 percent from 2022 to 2023.
“The population growth in Florida’s metro areas underscores a larger trend of widespread population growth across the South, the nation’s fastest-growing region and site of all of the top 10 fastest-growing U.S. metro areas from 2022 to 2023,” the U.S. Census Bureau said.
“The growth continued a pattern already clear the previous year when eight of the 10 fastest-growing metro areas were in the South.”
This article originally appeared on Ocala Star-Banner: The Villages and Ocala: Two of the fastest growing metros in the U.S.
