Jersey City Is Fastest Growing NJ City By Residents Added: Census

JERSEY CITY, NJ — Jersey City topped the list for the top ten fastest growing cities, with 44,852 new residents counted in the 2020 Census.

New Census data shows Jersey City is still the second-largest city in the state, but is the fastest growing by the number of residents added. Updated Census numbers show that Jersey City's population count went from 247,597 in 2010 to 292,449 in 2020, about a 15.3 percent increase.

While the city lead the state in number of residents added, Jersey City didn't make the top 10 list for cities by percentage growth — that top spot went to Princeton, which saw a 149.3 percent increase.

Jersey City remained the second-largest city in New Jersey, just behind Newark.

New Jersey grew by 513,365 residents (3.05 percent) between the 2010 and 2020 census. It ranked 26th in the nation for growth percentage.
Since the 2010 census, the population of U.S. metro areas has grown by 9 percent. Eighty-six percent of the country's population was living in metro areas in 2020, compared to 85 percent in 2010.

Metro areas in the south and western United States saw the most growth, according to Marc Perry, a senior demographer at the Census Bureau.

"However, as we've been seeing in our annual population estimates, our nation is growing slower than it used to," Perry said in a news release. "This decline is evident at the local level, where around 52 percent of the counties in the United States saw their 2020 census populations decrease from their 2010 census populations."

Reporter Alexis Tarrazi contributed to this report.