- Detroit, Michigan’s largest city, sustained population growth last year and helped spur a statewide gain, according to new US Census data
- Several rural communities lost population, however, including wide swaths of the ‘thumb’ and Upper Peninsula
- The data also shows Michigan is adding housing but still struggling to meet demand
LANSING — Population gains in Detroit helped fuel Michigan’s statewide growth between 2024 and 2025 and outpaced losses in nearly half of the state’s counties, according to US Census Bureau estimates released May 14.
Detroit added 5,000 residents for the year ending July 1, 2025, according to the estimates, even as 36 mostly rural Michigan counties lost a combined 3,449 residents.
All told, Michigan added about 28,000 residents for the year to remain at 10.1 million. New estimates suggest the state also added more than 22,000 housing units over that same span.
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Detroit’s growth — its third straight year of significant gains — helped it maintain its spot as the nation’s 26th most-populous city, a ranking it has held since 2023. The city’s roughly 650,000 population is a far cry from the 1.8 million that called it home 75 years ago.
Detroit is one of only three communities in Wayne County to have grown in population since 2020.
“For decades, the story told about Detroit was always one about decline. Year after year families left, population shrank and too many people counted Detroit out,” Mayor Mary Sheffield said in a press conference. “But today the numbers tell a different story. They tell the real story of what is happening in our city; a city that is rising higher, a city that is growing stronger, gaining momentum and vitality.”
Sheffield said the population growth didn’t happen by accident: It was due to “intentional investments, strong partnerships and the hard work of Detroiters who never gave up on this city.”
Sheffield said her administration is working to maintain the city’s trajectory by improving safety and building 1,000 new single-family homes over the next four years.
“This administration is also focused on growing the incomes of Detroiters, growing the quality of life for Detroiters, growing the well-being of our residents as well.”
Shauna Jones, a new resident in the Marygrove neighborhood, also spoke at the press conference about her decision to move from Memphis to the city.
“Detroit checked every box for me…” she said. “In many major cities, home ownership feels unattainable for everyday people, but Detroit still offers real opportunities to own a home without being priced out.”
Sheffield’s press conference was held at the Johnson Recreation Center on the city’s west side, where the Higginbotham Art Residences are under construction next door. The $35.9 million redevelopment of the nearly 100-year-old school building in the Garden Homes neighborhood — as well as construction of new buildings on the site — is a project from Detroit-based Urge Development Group. The property is expected to offer 100 units of housing at 30-80% of Area Median Income and should be opening this fall, according to the city.
Some officials present toured the buildings after the event concluded.
Despite the good news from the Census, Detroit continues to fight what officials say is a drastic undercount of the population since 2020.
Trisha Stein, senior director of strategic initiatives for the City of Detroit, said the Census Bureau counts population based on occupied homes, which means the demolition of blighted properties counts against the city. To remedy this, the Buildings, Safety Engineering, and Environmental Department, each month, submits data to the Census Bureau on newly permitted homes and renovated homes. Despite all that, Stein says the city believes the undercount measures somewhere near 25,000 residents.
“We know local data is best,” she said. “We know what’s happening in our neighborhoods, on our streets. We know new housing units are being built and renovated for families to move in.”
On Friday, the city’s legal team will be in federal court arguing against the county cap rule in Wayne County.
The rule is a U.S. Census Bureau methodology for annual population estimates that restricts the combined population of all cities, towns, and villages within a county to not exceed the total estimated population of that county.
Conflicting numbers can occur. County populations are estimated using methods like births, deaths, and migration, while city populations are estimated using housing unit changes. When the sum of the cities exceeds the county total, the census applies a single, proportional multiplier to cap or adjust) city counts downward to match the total county estimate.
“We are asking the judge to not let the Census Bureau use the county cap and instead count how many people live in each house (for Detroit),” Fink Bressack Attorney Philip Miller told BridgeDetroit.
Reversing population stagnation
Michigan has lagged in population growth, ranking 49th from 1990 to 2020. The state has begun to turn around the decades of demographic decline, though a swiftly aging population has some officials deeply concerned.
For the first time in 35 years, Michigan was able to staunch the bleeding of residents to other states last year, gaining about 1,800 more residents than it lost from domestic migration.
Other highlights of the new Census release include:
- Several cities grew, including Grand Rapids, whose population rose to 201,183 after gaining an estimated 1,795 residents, a roughly 1% increase. Ann Arbor added an estimated 786 residents, growing 0.6% to 122,233 overall.
- Ottawa County, once the fastest-growing county in Michigan, saw growth slow last year, tailing Ingham County and only slightly ahead of Kent County. It remains, however, the fastest-growing of Michigan’s 10 largest counties, with an estimated 308,459 residents in 2025.
- Springdale Township, a small community in Manistee County, grew by 8.1%, the fastest rate in the state. It added an estimated 107 residents, growing to 1,433 overall.
- Some outer-ring Detroit suburbs saw strong growth, such as Macomb Township, which gained an estimated 1,219 residents, a 1.3% increase. Commerce Township in Oakland County grew 2.1%, with 941 new residents.
- But growth in Macomb County’s Warren and Sterling Heights, sprawling suburban bedroom communities that are the state’s third and fourth-largest cities, lagged behind the statewide average. Warren added just 6 residents in 2025, according to the estimates. Sterling Heights added 143. Both have lost population since 2020.
- Some parts of Wayne County lost population, including Dearborn, which lost an estimated 405 residents between 2024 and 2025, the largest number in the state. The bureau now pegs the city’s population at 105,611.
Population trends
Among counties, Oakland added 5,800 residents, rising to nearly 1.3 million, while Kent jumped 4,800 to 675,232.
Wayne County, home to Detroit, has seen a notable progression.
Between 2020 and 2025, the county lost about 20,600 residents, according to the Census estimates. But the county gained about 3,500 residents between 2024 and 2025 — a marked change buoyed largely by the growth in Detroit.
That growth was dragged down by losses in Wayne County’s suburbs, such as Dearborn, which hast lost more than 3,900 residents since mid-2020.
Dearborn and neighbors Livonia, Westland, Dearborn Heights and Taylor have lost a combined 14,000 residents since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Census Bureau relies on county-level administrative data to determine the balance of births and deaths, then uses municipal-level information on housing changes and other federal sources to distribute those population changes between cities and towns to form their estimates.
Comparing the totals year over year — especially among the multitude of small towns in Michigan — can be fraught.
The city of Manton, in Wexford County, grew to an estimated 1,626 residents after adding 102 people in 2025, a 7% increase that ranked among the largest gains in Michigan, according to bureau data.
So did Mayor Steve Sisco see the Manton boom firsthand?
“Not at all,” he told Bridge Michigan.
Sisco said he and his wife prepare welcome baskets for new residents, but he only recalls handing out “maybe 14 in 2025, and two this year.” He’s not certain of Manton’s exact population, either, he said.
A trickling decline in residents resumed in much of rural Michigan, from the thumb and the Upper Peninsula, despite seeming some pandemic-era relief from population loss in prior years.
Housing totals
Amid a concerted push by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to add more affordable housing in Michigan, the US Census Bureau estimated the state gained about 22,500 housing units between July 2024 and July 2025 to about 4.7 million housing units.
The increase was about the same as the prior year. Rather than market forces, it appears a fair portion of the growth may have been subsidized through state programs.
The Michigan State Housing Development Authority had previously announced the agency “produced, preserved, or financed 12,414 housing units” in the 2025 fiscal year by investing “a record $2.61 billion in housing statewide” — more than half of the state’s net gain.
But homes are also vacated, demolished or abandoned throughout the year, meaning the total created is likely higher. Growing the housing stock was a policy promise Whitmer made in her 2024 State of the State address.
Some notable highlights in the new Census housing data:
- Rural counties such as the western Upper Peninsula’s Iron County saw a 1.5% growth in available housing, according to the estimates, while new construction in Montcalm County brought an additional 282 housing units.
- Grand Traverse and Manistee counties saw some of the largest increases in housing, increasing their stock by an estimated 862 and 292 units, respectively — close to a 2% increase year over year.
Those gains come as real estate prices have skyrocketed in parts of northern Michigan, where local residents increasingly find themselves priced out of a high-demand marketplace.
A recent study found the 10-county region comprising Antrim, Benzie, Charlevoix, Emmet, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska, Leelanau, Manistee, Missaukee and Wexford counties needs 30,000 more units by 2027 to meet demand.
Since 2020, those ten counties have added about 7,600 housing units.
Two Michigan counties — Bay and Montmorency — failed to see any net housing increases between 2024 and 2025.
BridgeDetroit Executive Editor Laurén Abdel-Razzaq contributed.
