Dane County continues to outpace some population projections as new federal census estimates found that nearly 14,000 people moved to the county since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The latest population estimates reflect a 2.5% increase, a sign of the county’s growth and ongoing difficulties faced by the housing market to keep up with it.
Between April 2020 and July 2023, Dane County’s population has risen from an estimated 561,500 residents to 575,350, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released last week.
“It shows the economic strength of the region,” said Kurt Paulsen, a professor of urban planning at UW-Madison. “I think it also means we really have to go and update our long-term forecasts. They’ll probably be significantly higher.”
But population projections for the county in recent years have varied depending on who’s doing the counting.
Woods & Poole, an industry standard for demographic projections, anticipated the county to have a population of 573,300 by the end of 2023, which trails the latest census figures.
The new census numbers might even be an undercount of the actual number of new county residents, said Sean Higgins, a senior community planner with the Capital Area Regional Planning Commission.
Those variations point to a need for officials and planners to reach closer numbers, but the bottom line is that Dane County continues to grow at a steady and rapid pace, Higgins said.
“It’s a one-two punch,” Higgins said. “Not only do we have to plan for this development and this growth, but we’re also behind the curve in supplying housing. We need to approach this with a common understanding of what the likely outcome is.”
Using pre-pandemic state DOA figures that have already been outpaced, the regional planning commission determined that the county needed more than 100,000 new housing units by 2050.
In Madison, 2022 new housing permits signal about 2,350 units expected to be added to the city’s housing supply across 2023 and 2024, according to the city’s latest housing report.
Beyond Dane County, the latest figures show how the population is changing throughout Wisconsin. The state added about 17,000 residents between 2020 and 2023, bringing the state’s population to 5.9 million, according to the data.
Milwaukee County continued to see an extreme population decline, hemorrhaging 23,000 people since 2020, a 2.5% drop, according to the data. The WOW counties surrounding Milwaukee – Waukesha, Washington and Ozaukee – all saw growth since the beginning of the pandemic.
Waukesha added 5,600 people, the second-most in the state behind Dane County, a 1.4% increase.
Ozaukee added 2,000 residents, a 2.1% increase, and Washington added 1,400 people, a 1% increase.
Most Wisconsin counties added residents, though many increases were modest gains of a few hundred residents in small- to medium-sized places.
Other notable gains were seen in St. Croix County, along the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi River outside the Twin Cities. The population there grew by 3,200 people, a 3.5% rise. Nearby Eau Claire County grew by about 2%, adding about 2,200 residents.
Work progresses Monday on new housing for both Bayview Neighborhood residents, in the foreground and on the right in the background, and UW-Madison students, on the left in the background. Since April 2020, Dane County has added 14,000 residents, according to new figures from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Construction continues on Bakers Place apartments on East Main Street on Madison's Near East Side. About 2,350 new housing units are expected to be added to Madison's housing supply across 2023 and 2024, according to a recent city report. It had been estimated that the county needs to add more than 100,000 housing units by 2050 to keep up with population growth.