Tampa Bay among fastest-growing large U.S. metro areas

U.S. population growth has slowed to its lowest rate on record. At the end of 2021, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that the nation’s population had grown by 392,665 compared to the previous year, an increase of just 0.1%.

The Tampa Bay metro area, which includes Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater, is going against that trend, according to a new study by Inspection Support Network, a company that provides software for residential, insurance and commercial property inspections. From 2016 to 2021, Tampa Bay’s population surged from 3,048,963 to 3,219,514, an increase of 170,551, or 5.6%. That ranks it No. 15 among the nation’s large metro areas, just behind Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, Arizona.