Region outpaces others in Florida in population surge

The additional traffic is a dead giveaway but now the data is in: Southwest Florida is one of the fastest-growing regions nationwide.

The region, Charlotte, Collier and Lee, added 24,000 residents from 2017 to 2018, up 1.91% from the previous year, according to a recent U.S. Census estimate. More growth? The tri-county area population, now at 1.3 million people, has grown 19.5% since 2010, or 228,000 people, according to Census data analyze  by real estate data firm CoStar. That’s faster than other Southeast regions, such as Charleston, S.C., and the second-fastest in Florida, behind Orlando.