12
THE PEOPLE OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY
PLANNING ISSUE
The county is forecasted to
add 94,612 more residents by
2040. Where will these
people live and work and how
might this change the existing
landscape?
What’s New
•
Montgomery County added the third largest number
of people (50,887) between 2000 and 2010 of all of
Pennsylvania’s counties.
•
The ten largest municipalities in the county remained
the same as in 2000, but half of those places lost
population in the last ten years.
•
The most populous municipalities remain in the
eastern part of the county, most being near or
adjacent to Philadelphia, but some outside the inner
ring of suburbs are catching up. Horsham,
Montgomery, and Lower Providence Townships all
moved up within the top ten.
•
After a period of decline, some boroughs and
municipalities, such as Norristown, are starting to
build back up with redevelopment and the influx of
immigration. 14 of the county’s 24 boroughs gained
population between 2000 and 2010.
Population and Projections
Household Characteristics
and Age
Income, Poverty, and Education
Race and Hispanic Origin
Population and Projections
Existing Population
Montgomery County is the third most populated county in
Pennsylvania. In fact, the county’s 808,000 people make it
larger than four entire states. The county has evolved over
the last hundred years from a collection of industrialized
towns and villages spread amongst rural farmland and open
space to a mix of old and new suburbs with regional
economic centers that both support and compete with
Philadelphia. The county’s fastest growth periods took
place in the decades prior to 1970 as the rapid expansion of
roads, sewers, and other infrastructure opened new and less
expensive areas of the county for development. Since 1970,
population growth has slowed, but it has still grown by
about six percent on average each decade.
The areas of the county with the greatest population
densities are found in the boroughs and in some of the
mature suburbs in the eastern part of the county which
border Philadelphia. However, the greatest growth over the
last twenty years has taken place in some of the townships in
the western half of the county, especially along the Route
422 corridor.
FIGURE 6:
Population Growth: 1900-2010
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
0
100,000
200,000
300,000
400,000
500,000
600,000
700,000
800,000
900,000
1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
