DC Still on Track for Nearly 1 Million Residents in 2045

• February 27, 2019

by Nena Perry-Brown

DC's paltry population growth last year hasn't affected one local organization's forecast for the city to reach 1 million residents 25 years from now. 

Over two years before Amazon selected northern Virginia for a second headquarters campus, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG) forecast that the population of DC proper would be nearly 1 million by 2045. MWCOG's most recent forecast shows that the region remains on-track to add 1.5 million people, or 648,000 households, by 2045. This growth will be primarily due to the addition of 1 million jobs in the same timeframe. 

For DC, the population is still expected to grow by 47 percent, accounting for 20 percent of the population growth in the region. The DC population is forecasted to grow to 729,500 next year, 842,200 in 2030, 940,700 in 2040 and hit 987,000 in 2045. Interestingly enough, this report also forecast that over half (53 percent) of employment growth during this time will be concentrated in Northern Virginia.

The MWCOG area encompasses DC; Prince George's, Montgomery, Charles and Frederick counties in Maryland; and Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties in Virginia.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/dc-still-on-track-for-nearly-1-million-residents-in-2045/15060