How many people are really moving to Nashville every day?

• In terms of number of people added daily, metro Nashville is growing faster than peer cities such as Raleigh, Indianapolis, Louisville and Memphis.
• But the Music City trails Austin, Denver and Charlotte, which respectively are adding 148,140 and 109 people a day.
• One out of five of the net migration into the overall Metro area has come from overseas, according to one tracking.

Quick! How many people move to Nashville each day?

That's become a hotly debated question, as Music City experiences a growth spurt. Public officials and media outlets have been known to throw out figures ranging from 50 to more than 100 as they promote and chronicle Nashville's recent boom years.

But settling on a firm figure has proven tricky. The varying numbers reflect different ways demographic statistics are tracked, including the geography and the time period being considered, not to mention whether adjustments are made for new births and deaths.

There's no question that the metro Nashville area's population has increased consistently over the past five years. Reflecting migration and new births minus deaths, the 14-county region went from adding 62 people a day between 2010 and 2011 to 100 people daily last year.

That's based on census data tracked by Nashville-based economic and development consultant Randall Gross, who, like most economic analysts, prefers looking at statistics over longer periods of time.

That's where the widely used roughly 85 people a day estimate comes in.

Based on U.S. Census data, the 14-county Nashville metro statistical area gained 30,875 people a year between July 2010 and 2015. That translates into an annual average 1.8 percent growth over last five years, which is more than double the 0.8 percent national growth rate.

In terms of number of people added daily, the Nashville metro area is growing faster than peer cities such as Raleigh, Indianapolis, Louisville and Memphis — our in-state rival to the west, which added just under 10 people a day. But Music City trails Austin, Denver and Charlotte, which respectively are adding 148, 140 and 109 people a day.

Michael Wald, an Atlanta-based independent economics analyst, said growth in the Nashville region's economy had led to even more growth. "More workers cause more demand for more goods and services, which creates more employment," he said, adding job growth has been key to more people moving here. "It becomes a virtuous circle."

But in the view of Nicholas J. Lindeman, economic and systems data analyst with Nashville Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, that 85 people a day estimate doesn't present the complete picture.

His analysis of five years of census data through mid-year 2015 shows a net migration of roughly 58 people a day into the Nashville region. That's based on total population growth of 159,449 people across the 14-county region in the past five years, which includes a net migration of 105,958 plus a net natural increase of 51,809 people taking into account both births and deaths.

At the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, Vice President of Research Garrett Harper cites a rate of 71 people per day as the most recent figure based on last year's net growth of more than 26,062 people moving in and out of the Nashville region. Add the number of people born or who died here and that number would increase to nearly 100 a day.

"While the 100 per day is the highest in numerical terms in recent years, it's not quite the highest in percentage terms," Harper said. "What we're experiencing now is comparable to what we were experiencing in 2006 and 2007. It's not very different in level of growth for those two years."

In Davidson County, the total population growth trend has varied from year to year, according to Gross' analysis that shows 27 people moving to the county daily last year versus 26 the previous year and only 21 between 2010 and 2011.

Meanwhile, on average more than half of migration into Davidson County over the past five years — more than 60 percent last year — has been international migration. Also, just over one out of five of the net migration into the overall Metro area has come from overseas.

"We're becoming more diverse in terms of our art and culture, in terms of the labor force and the types of services we provide," Gross said. "It's affecting all different parts of our lives."

As an undergraduate economics major in college, one of the first lessons I learned is that statistics is never an exact science. "It's not about the actual numbers, it's about direction of the numbers — are they going up or down?" economics analyst Wald said.

Reach Getahn Ward at 615-726-5968 and on Twitter @getahn.

Growth cities

Annual average percentage growth in population, 2010-2015

Austin 3.2%

Raleigh 2.4%

Denver 2%

Nashville 1.8%

Charlotte 1.8%

Atlanta 1.5%

Indianapolis 1.0%

Louisville 0.7%

Memphis 0.3%

United States 0.8%

Source: U.S. Census Bureau estimates

ABOUT THIS PROJECT

#NEWNASHVILLE

Music City is transforming at a breathtaking rate. The New Nashville project captures a range of perspectives on this process as reported by the Tennessean reporting teams. The voices captured here undercut the popular stereotypes of Nashville’s citizens, its music and culture, its food, its faith and its future.

The major theme that emerged is that, at the moment, Nashville is engaged in a lengthy balancing act; weighing up the new opportunities emerging for longtime residents and recent arrivals with the values and qualities that made the city what it is.