San Antonio area is No. 6 in population growth in the...

A job at Chase Bank took New York state native Brian Atkinson to Midland-Odessa in West Texas. But after getting married, he and his wife decided they wanted to plant their roots permanently in Texas, specifically the Hill Country.

So Atkinson moved to San Antonio in June, making him one of the 51,285 people the metropolitan area gained between July 2014 and July 2015. The eight-county region continues to be one of the fastest growing in the country, according to new U.S. Census Bureau population estimates released Thursday.

It’s always good to live in a growing city, said Atkinson, whose wife moved to San Antonio two months after he did.

“It’s a vibrant economy, a diverse economy, so that’s something that gives you long-term comfort,” said Atkinson, who still works for Chase and lives near Interstate 10 and Huebner Road. His wife is originally from Houston, so had previous ties to the state.

The San Antonio-New Braunfels metro area was among 16 areas nationwide to gain 50,000 people or more in that one-year period. Looking only at counties, Bexar had the fifth-largest numeric population increase, adding 37,479 people.

The San Antonio metro region had the sixth-fastest growth rate in the country among metros with a population of 1 million or more, growing by 2.2 percent, from 2,332,790 to 2,384,075 people last year. The metro area includes Bexar, Atascosa, Bandera, Comal, Guadalupe, Kendall, Medina and Wilson counties.

“We’re still growing and growing faster than most of the rest of the country,” said state demographer Lloyd Potter.

The San Antonio metro growth rate has climbed nonstop for the last five years: the population grew 1.9 percent from 2010 to 2011, and then slightly more than 2 percent every year since.

The San Antonio numbers came as no surprise to John Dugan, the city’s outgoing planning director who is overseeing a comprehensive planning effort called SA Tomorrow. The plan is designed to prepare the region for a 1.1 million population increase by the year 2040. The city’s healthy job market, which has been able to withstand downturns in the oil industry, continues to drive growth.

“It just reinforces the fact that the future is coming at us very quickly,” Dugan said. “The (SA Tomorrow) plans that are being laid out will be able to help us engage that future in a creative way so we don’t lose the value, the qualities of the city we’re here all experiencing right now.”

The Austin-Round Rock metro area had the fastest growth rate, 2.95 percent, among large metros in the U.S., with Houston-The Woodlands-Sugarland coming in fourth and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington eighth.

Combined, the four Texas metro areas, including San Antonio, added more people last year than any single state, the estimates show.

The state overall gained 490,000 people from 2014 to 2015. The population in the four metro areas increased by about 412,000 people, reflecting spikes in growth in the state’s urban counties and big cities.

San Antonio had the smallest numeric population growth of the four areas. The Houston-The Woodlands-Sugarland metro area added 159,083 people; Dallas-Fort Worth increased by 144,704 people and Austin-Round Rock by 57,395 residents.

The Houston area added more people, numerically, than any metro in the entire country, while the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro area was second.

Bexar County tied with Harris County for second fastest-growing county in the state, among those with populations greater than 1 million, jumping by 2 percent. That’s even higher than SA Tomorrow estimates, which assume a 1.8 percent population increase in the county over the next 25 years, said Dugan, the city planning director. Travis County, which includes Austin, was first in the state, growing by 2.2 percent.

Shirley Albright, 60, moved to San Antonio in 2013 after Boeing closed the facility where her husband worked in Wichita, Kansas. He had a choice between here and Oklahoma City. The couple agreed San Antonio was the better option for him and for Albright, who works in corporate communications and was attracted to the city’s job options.

“I think it’s just such a vibrant market down here, compared to there,” said Albright, who lives in Stone Oak.

The San Antonio region’s unemployment rate held steady in January at 3.7 percent, below the state average of 4.5 percent.

The area had an annualized job growth rate of 2.7 percent, based on November, December and January data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, the same rate for all of 2015.

Home sales also continue to climb. More than 1,900 homes were sold in the San Antonio area in February, a 10 percent increase from the previous year, the San Antonio Board of Realtors reported.

The Albrights faced some difficulties with the move, namely that their grown children still live in Kansas. But all of them are happy to visit.

“The good news is there’s so much to do in San Antonio,” she said.

Counties that surround Bexar also grew quickly from 2014 to 2015, an ongoing trend that shows increasing urbanization of once-rural areas.

Comal, which includes New Braunfels, grew by 4.5 percent; Kendall, which includes Boerne, increased by 4.2 percent; Guadalupe went up by 2.7 percent; and Wilson increased by 2.3 percent. Atascosa, Bandera and Medina all grew by less than 2 percent.

Land is usually cheaper in these outlying counties, Dugan said, and there’s usually fewer development regulations.

Hays County, just south of Austin, was the fifth-fastest growing in the U.S. compared to counties of all sizes, while Comal was eighth-fastest. Kendall was 13th.

The population increases in San Antonio, Austin and the in-between counties along the Interstate 35 corridor also reinforce the theory that the two cities will eventually grow together into a mega-region akin to Dallas-Fort Worth.

Atkinson and his wife looked at both Austin and San Antonio when deciding where to move, but ultimately decided they were more well-suited to the Alamo City. He likes that San Antonio is spread out, so it doesn’t feel so much like a big city.

“It’s always described as a big city with a small-town feel,” he said.

vdavila@express-news.net

Twiter: @viannadavila

Data visualization journalist Rachael Gleason contributed to this report.