Well, it looks like this prediction from almost seven years ago is coming to pass--albeit slowly:
Durham and Winston-Salem traded the #4 and #5 positions between 2007 and 2012 before the Bull City pulled away from the Twin City. Given the stagnant growth around the Gate City, it's plausible that Winston could leapfrog it for #3 or rather Greensboro falls to #5 some time around the 2020 Census or afterwards.
As it turns out, the Rhino took notice of Greensboro's stagnant growth, which is reaching zero population growth territory.
It looks like the Gate City will fall to fourth place in no time and may even fall behind Winston-Salem by the 2030 Census. Consider the evidence:
The bad news is that the growth in two years was only 2,394 or 0.8 percent, which compared to Greensboro’s peer cities in the state is anemic...The latest figures show that by 2022 the population in Durham had grown to 292,939. The population growth during that period was 9,432 or 3.3 percent...Even Winston-Salem right next door grew in population more than twice as fast as Greensboro. Winston-Salem’s growth rate was 1.9 percent to a 2022 population of 254,200.
Given that Durham has recently had its own issues, what's happening to Greensboro represents a precipitous fall as it far outpaced Raleigh for second place in 1960 and is staring at a possible fifth place showing in the near future. As a friend said last year, Greensboro has lost its way.
