Detroit population gain fueled Michigan growth. See Census numbers for your town

• Detroit gained nearly 6,800 residents from 2023 to 2024, fueled by new and rehabbed housing that boosted Michigan numbers
• Suburban townships in Macomb, Oakland, and Washtenaw counties also saw strong population increases
• Experts say continued growth may depend on the economy, with inflation, interest rates, and tariffs prompting some developers to delay or pause planned housing projects.

A bump in Michigan’s population last year extended to many of the state’s cities, townships and villages, with Detroit adding nearly 6,800 people from 2023 to 2024, according to Census estimates released Thursday. 

Developers have built new condos, apartments and homes in Detroit, and residents have rehabbed and occupied others, helping grow the city’s estimated population to 645,705, up from 620,000 just three years ago.

While estimates do not drive state or local funding, the new numbers are good news for Detroit, said city spokesperson John Roach, who responded to the new Census data with some surprise: “Wow.”

A number of townships in Macomb, Oakland and Washtenaw counties also posted strong gains. That included Saline, Scio and Pittsfield townships, which each saw more than 3% growth from 2023 to 2024.

“Washtenaw County is a safe bet to build more homes,” said Benjamin Carlisle, planning consultant for Pittsfield Township, which added an estimated 1,300 people from 2023 to 2024. 

“If you build it, people will come,” added Carlisle, whose consulting firm also works with Saline and Scio townships, each of which recorded 5% growth.

A revamped method for counting migrants — both legal and unauthorized — triggered most of the statewide population estimate increase from 2023 to 2024, officials have said. The migrants didn’t arrive in the past year but improved counting methods added them to the latest totals.

Nationwide, that new method led to a 1.1 million increase in the number of recognized international migrants from July 2022 to July 2023. From 2023 through July 2024, an estimated 2.78 million people came to the United States from other countries.

In Michigan, the increase in international migration pushed the 2024 population estimate to 10,140,459, an increase of 57,103 people from 2023. That’s despite more deaths than births and more people leaving the state than moving to it.

Related:

• Immigration helps Michigan gain 57K residents, losses to other states shrink
• Are Michigan population woes improving? Moving data offers signs of hope
• Detroit gains residents for first time in decades. Check your city’s change

Michigan has had some of the most anemic growth in the country, ranking 49th in growth from 1990 to 2020; only West Virginia fared worse. There have been more hopeful signs lately, with the annual net losses to other states shrinking as well as the gap between deaths and births.

In 2022, there were over 13,000 more deaths than births as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to hit the state. In 2024, there were roughly 2,800 more deaths than births.

Among the state’s other large cities, Grand Rapids added an estimated 1,847 people with an overall population of 200,117; Warren was up 534 to 137,686; Sterling Heights grew by 646 to 132,342, and Ann Arbor, the state’s fifth largest city, added 280 people. It now has a population of 122,925. 

Detroit bump

For years Detroit leaders have pushed the Census to change how it counts housing, acknowledging the city did not lose thousands of people when it demolished scores of blighted and abandoned homes, said Kurt Metzger, a demography and census consultant.

After agreeing to change its methods, the Census Bureau boosted Detroit’s 2023 estimate to 638,914. It revised the estimates upwards again in the latest release, giving the city a population of 645,705 in 2024.

The numbers indicate that Detroit is bouncing back from “hitting the bottom” after decades of population loss since more than 1.5 million people lived there in the 1950s, Metzger said. 

“It’s good to see that reflected in the numbers,” he said. 

New apartments and condos have sprung up in downtown, Corktown, Midtown and elsewhere, while homes have been rehabilitated across the city, which still has big swaths of vacant land.

“There are vacant land bank houses being renovated and reoccupied across the city and thousands of new units of affordable housing that have been built,” Roach said in an email statement to Bridge Michigan. 

“That's where we are seeing the growth.”

But whether that growth continues is a question for communities and developers, said Carlisle, the Washtenaw County planning consultant.

Growing economic uncertainty has put a damper on some developments, Carlisle said. Concerns about inflation, interest rates, tariffs — and the potential impact of all on unemployment rates — have caused a number of developers to put projects on hold, he said.