Population estimates released Thursday by the U S Census Bureau showed Shelby County neck-and-neck with Tuscaloosa County last year- 165,677 people lived in Shelby County as of July 2004, while 167,104 lived in Tuscaloosa County. But Shelby County is growing 10 times faster than Tuscaloosa – 5,600 people a year since 2000 compared with Tuscaloosa County’s 560 people a year – so Shelby County likely has bumped Tuscaloosa County out of the No. 5 ranking.

“Shelby County has been the fastest-growing county in Alabama for more than 20 years,” said Annette Watters, manager of the State of Alabama Data Center at the University of Alabama’s Center for Business and Economic Research. “It takes a long time to go from a rural backwater to surpassing Tuscaloosa County.”

The four largest counties in Alabama are still Jefferson, Mobile, Madison and Montgomery.

Though similar in population, Tuscaloosa County and Shelby County differ greatly.

Tuscaloosa remains what it has been for decades – the economic and activity center for west Alabama, Watters said. Shelby County, in contrast, has been turned upside down as it became the epicenter of Alabama’s growth and development.

“Twenty-five years ago Shelby County was mostly a rural county,” Watters said. “It had a good bit of agriculture, it had small churches and it had people who were accustomed to a rural lifestyle.”

“In 2005 that mentality has completely changed and the shift from one kind of county to another kind of county in one generation is something that not many places undergo.”

Increasing Income

As it has grown, Shelby County has also become wealthy. Its median family income of $64,105 in 2000 was tops in the state, far outpacing Tuscaloosa County’s $45,485 or the state’s $41,657.

The difference in wealth shows in property values.

Even though Shelby County’s 794 square miles is only 60 percent of the area of Tuscaloosa County, its total property value has been higher for several years, said Buddy Sharpless, executive director of the Association of County Commissions of Alabama.

As of September 2004, Shelby County had $2.1 billion in total assessed property valuation, fifth in the state behind Jefferson, Mobile, Baldwin and Madison counties, according to the Department of Examiners of Public Accounts. Tuscaloosa County had $1.4 billion in total assessed property valuation, seventh in the state.

Shelby County Commissioner Earl Cunningham said Shelby County’s continuing population growth pleases him, but he worries about residents who are being left behind.

“We should never forget that there are people who need to enjoy the quality of life that we have,” he said. “We never need to forget about the underserved groups. You’ve got some people here who can’t even afford affordable housing.”

One example is the Almont community near Montevallo, where resident have aging septic tanks that are close to malfunctioning, Cunningham said. Almont is in his district.

Five of the seven counties in the Birmingham-Hoover metropolitan area showed rapid growth from April 2000 to July 2004, according to the population estimates. Shelby was the fastest-growing county in Alabama, with 15.6 percent increase since 2000.

St. Clair, Blount and Bibb counties were fifth, sixth and seventh in growth, with increases of 8.5, 7.8 and 7.2 percent respectively. Chilton County was the 11th fastest-growing since 2000 with a population increase of 4.7 percent.

Slower Statewide

All of these outpaced Alabama’s slow overall growth of 1.9 percent from 2000 to 2004. Alabama’s population is now 4.53 million.

Two counties in the Birmingham-Hoover metropolitan area lost population. Jefferson County declined by 3,552 people from 2000 to 2004 to an estimated population of 658,495. Walker County declined by 708 people to an estimated 70,005.

The 2004 population of the seven-county metropolitan area totaled 1.08 million, 24 percent of the state’s population.

Despite Shelby County’s rapid growth, Jefferson County still dominates the metropolitan area with 61 percent of the population. Shelby County is second with 15 percent of the metro population.

This week’s data does not tell where Shelby County’s new residents moved from. But the 2000 census found that 32 percent of the people moving into Shelby County from 1995-2000 came from another county in the Birmingham-Hoover metropolitan area and 6 percent of those came from the city of Birmingham, Watters said.

Statewide, almost two-thirds of Alabama’s counties showed stagnant of declining populations from 2000-2004. The five counties with the largest percentage loss of population – 4.3 percent to 5.8 percent – were Lamar, Conecuh, Sumter, Coosa and Choctaw.

Most of Alabama’s fastest-growing counties were suburbs of metropolitan areas, but five non-metropolitan counties also showed strong growth from 2000 to 2004, Watters said.

Four contiguous counties in northeast Alabama – DeKalb, Marshall, Cherokee and Cullman – had growth rates of 2.2 percent to 3.9 percent in 2000-04. In southeast Alabama, Coffee County had a growth rate of 3.3 percent. In 2003 the Census Bureau dubbed all these counties except Cherokee as “micropolitan” areas, which center on a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people.

“They have vibrant small towns like Fort Payne, Enterprise and Albertville that are an economic hub of their small area,” Watters said.