SYRACUSE, N.Y (WSYR-TV) — New reports are showing growth in key areas for the City of Syracuse.

Population and private sector jobs are growing at the same time credit rating agencies are looking more favorably on City government.

“Some people are excited, some people are surprised,” Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh tells NewsChannel 9.

U.S. Census Bureau estimates show Syracuse was the only major city in New York State to gain population in 2017-2018.

While the other major cities, like Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, and New York City, saw modest population declines, Syracuse experienced a .32 percent rise in population between 2017 and 2018. During the same period, the City also experienced the highest population gain of any municipality in Onondaga County.

Walsh says, “It’s a step in the right direction. Again, we don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves, but we pride ourselves on being data driven. Population is a significant data point for our city and to see it headed in the right direction is positive.”

In April, the National Association of Realtors reported that among the top 100 metropolitan areas in the U.S., Syracuse had the third highest percentage of millennials moving to the area. The top two metro areas were New Haven/Milford, Connecticut, and Madison, Wisconsin.

The study of moving patterns of young people found that nearly three in four new Syracuse residents in 2017 were millennials.

“They’re looking for dynamic, interesting, urban environments and that’s increasingly what we have here in the urban core of Syracuse and that’s reflected in the growth we’ve seen downtown, so now our goal is to continue that growth, but then to extend it into all of our neighborhoods and again, I think we’re beginning to see that,” Mayor Walsh says.

State Labor Department estimates for the state’s metro areas has Syracuse with an increase in private sector jobs of 6,700 from April 2018 to April 2019. This 2.6% increase is higher than the national increase of 2%, the statewide average of 1.5% and second-highest overall in New York State

for that time period.

Over that period, Syracuse added more jobs than its neighboring metros of Rochester and Albany combined.

Walsh tells NewsChannel 9, ” I’ve certainly heard over the past year-and-a-half a sense of optimism and sense of hope for where our community is headed and when we can start to back that up with actual statistics, that’s when it really starts to resonate with people and that’s what we’re seeing now.”

Earlier this month, Mayor Walsh announced that Standard & Poors Global Ratings upgraded its outlook for the City to Stable and maintained the City’s rating at A in its 2019 update. S&P’s outlook had been Negative.

Moody’s Investor Services, another of the top worldwide credit rating agencies, maintained its Stable outlook and its A1 rating for Syracuse.

Both services issued their reports after comprehensive reviews of the City’s fiscal status.

For more local news, follow Jeff Kulikowsky on Twitter @JeffNC9