From Staff Reports 

Asheville’s population growth slowed from 2014 to 2015, while some other municipalities in the Asheville metro area grew faster, according to recently released data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Asheville’s 0.8 percent population increase — equivalent to 700 people — is the lowest of any year going back to 2011. (Asheville’s 2015 population was 88,512. Among North Carolina’s 553 incorporated areas, Asheville ranks No. 5 – the same as the last five years.)

Asheville “comfortably remains this same concentration of growth reflected in the uptick in commercial and residential development in those areas,” Tom Tveidt, also a past chair of the Council for Community and Economic Research, a Virginia-based nonprofit organization, said. “And by contrast, municipalities in the northern metro area of Madison County are seeing the weakest growth.”

Among the incorporated muncipalities in the Asheville metro area – comprising Buncombe, Haywood, Henderson and Madison counties – that grew faster than Asheville during the 2014-2015 span were the following:

• Biltmore Forest 2015 population: 1,441. One-year change: 1.5 percent or 21 people.

• Black Mountain 2015 population: 8,278. One-year change: 1 percent or 78 people.

• Canton 2015 population: 4,190. One-year change: 0.9 percent or 36 people.

• Village of Flat Rock 2015 population: 3,313. One-year change: 1.7 percent or 55 people.

• Fletcher 2015 population: 7,582. One-year change: 1.6 percent or 116 people.

• Laurel Park 2015 population: 2,314. One-year change: 1.6 percent or 36 people.

• Hendersonville 2015 population: 13, 814. One-year change: 1.6 percent or 212 people.

• Maggie Valley 2015 population: 1,251. One-year change: 0.9 percent or 11 people.

• Mills River 2015 population: 7,162. One-year change: 1.5 percent or 109 people.

• Weaverville 2015 population: 3,936. One-year change: 1.5 percent or 57 people.

• Woodfin 2015 population: 6,349. One-year change: 1.2 percent or 76 people.