Mebane is the fastest-growing city in North Carolina’s Piedmont Triad, census data reveals

(WGHP) — New data released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday revealed that Mebane is the fastest-growing city in the Piedmont Triad, growing by more than 10% since 2020.

The newly released U.S. Census data outlines population estimates for cities all across the state for 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. For the Triad, the data included Asheboro, Burlington, Clemmons, Greensboro, High Point, Kernersville, Mebane, Thomasville and Winston-Salem.

While other municipalities may have seen a larger increase in residents, the city of Mebane — population 20,212 as of 2023 — saw the largest percent growth over that period. From 2020 to 2021, the city grew by 3.09%. By 2022, it had grown another 4.83%. And by 2023, the city had grown an additional 2.95%. In total, Mebane grew 10.87% from 2020 to 2023.

By contrast, Greensboro grew by 0.64% from 2020 to 2021, 0.86% by 2022 and 0.50% by 2023, a cumulative 2.01% growth from 2020 to 2023.

Winston-Salem grew slower than Greensboro. The city grew 0.50% from 2020 to 2021, 0.28% by 2022 and 0.49% by 2023, a cumulative 1.27% growth from 2020 to 2023.

Why Mebane?

While we can’t say for certain what fueled Mebane’s growth, the small Alamance County city has gotten a lot of attention in recent years.

For one, Mebane is soon to become home to North Carolina’s first Buc-ees . The popular Texas-based gas station chain has a massive cult following, and this Alamance County location is expected to be a big draw. The proposed 32-acre mega-gas station would be located at 1447 Trollingwood-Hawsfield Road off I-85/40, just one exit west of Tanger Outlets.

Tanger Outlets , one of the area’s most popular draws, is a complex bringing together many popular brand-name stores, such as Polo Ralph Lauren, Nike, Simply Southern, Bath & Body Works, Under Armour, Old Navy, Aerie, Hanesbrands and more.

If you ask Mayor Ed Hooks, however, he’d tell you it’s all about Mebane’s downtown.

“Our downtown is our heart,” said Hooks in a recent episode of FOX8’s My Town Monday . “For years I’ve been on the council and we’ve tried to do everything we can to protect our downtown and enhance it.”

Mebane is a part of the Main Street Program as part of the town’s effort to continuously grow and revitalize the downtown. On any given day, you find people walking and searching through shops full of vintage finds and the latest trends. They stop and eat at restaurants with everything from tacos to ice cream.

Town leaders take care to preserve what once made the town great. Over the last few years, they turned the dilapidated and abandoned White Furniture building into lofts, and another old mill building became the town’s new library.

The city has 70 miles of sidewalks that could take you outside the town to places like Lake Michael where you can enjoy a stroll on the trail or paddle boats in the sun. The town is also in the process of building its first greenway.

“It’s an exciting time to be alive in Alamance County. We’re growing, we’re in the heart of the state and we have so many unique opportunities here that I think people are searching for,” said Reagan Gural, president and CEO of the Alamance Chamber.

Largest population increase

Of course, in recognizing Mebane’s growth by percentage, we should also recognize the city that saw the highest increase in residents. Looking strictly at the number of residents, Greensboro, the third largest city in the state after Charlotte and Raleigh, easily takes the prize for largest population increase with an added 5,951 residents, adding about 1,900 residents from 2020 to 2021, about 2,500 from 2021 to 2022 and about 1,500 from 2022 to 2023.

Winston-Salem, the runner-up, added 3,171 residents, increasing the population by about 1,200, 700 and 1,200 residents over each of those three years respectively.

Looking at the state as a whole, Charlotte saw the largest increase in population with about 35,500 new residents bringing the total to about 910,000, and the town of Leland, located in Brunswick County, grew the fastest with a 28% jump since 2020 bringing the population to about 30,500.

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