Axmarany Paniagua wants something more for her children.
She wants them to grow up in a peaceful community, where strangers stop to help when they see someone in trouble. She wants to be surrounded by parents who prioritize their children’s education and feel a sense of community that she misses in the south Louisville neighborhood where she currently lives.
She didn’t have to look far to find what she wanted. Last year, Paniagua and her fiancé began building a house in Crestwood, a town of about 6,000 in neighboring Oldham County, where she has already enrolled her 4-year-old son in preschool .
“We knew we wanted to do this for a long time,” she said. “…Once we saw an opportunity, we jumped on it and didn’t even think twice about it, and it was a great decision.”
Paniagua is not the only one to make such a choice. Since 2020, Louisville has been losing residents, while the population of surrounding counties has increased — a trend that some say is worrying as the city seeks to attract more businesses and talent.
New estimates from the US Census Bureau show a 1.4% drop – just under 11,000 people – in Jefferson County’s population between April 2020 and July 2023. And while that number may seem small, it represents a considerable drop when considering the count. added around 42,000 people between 2010 and 2020.
“The economic power of a city comes from its population,” said Matthew Ruther, director of the Kentucky State Data Center at the University of Louisville. “In the United States, we expect population growth. We view population loss as a bad thing. … It’s always a little concerning.”
This decline coincided with the upheavals caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which contributed to higher than normal mortality rates and led many residents to leave large cities.
But while regional cities comparable to Louisville also saw population declines, the city of Derby lost residents to exodus at a faster rate, according to a Courier Journal analysis.
At the same time, the overall population of the 12-county metro area has stagnated, increasing only 0.3% since 2020.
These are problems that Mayor Craig Greenberg is trying to solve through his Let’s grow Louisville together plan, which aims to increase the city’s population to one million by 2038, with a focus on attracting more adults aged 25 to 54. Jefferson County’s population currently hovers around 770,000.
“In the history of every city, there are moments when many streams of opportunity can come together to create a river of change,” the plan states. “This is Louisville’s time, time to think big and step out of your comfort zone.”
Louisville lags behind its regional peers
Jefferson County’s population has declined every year since 2020 Censusbased on estimates from birth and death records, tax records, and Social Security information.
The main cause of this decline is internal migration, with the county experiencing a net loss of 17,000 residents due…
