Regional data: Cobb County growth slows, but housing cost burden remains high

Anne Carpenter, chief research and innovation officer for the Atlanta Regional Commission, delivered a data-driven briefing on regional and Cobb County trends, emphasizing slowing growth, international migration patterns and acute housing cost burdens among lower-income residents.

"Atlanta continues to grow," Carpenter said, while noting that the region's growth rate has moderated since boom decades. She presented a historical series showing Cobb County's population increased roughly 300% over 55 years and cited a current county population of about 793,000.

Carpenter said employment growth over the past two decades shows recoveries after recession periods but is beginning to plateau; she reported approximately 414,000 workers in Cobb County. She also said international migration drove recent gains, peaking in 2024 at about 9,000 new overseas residents to the county and falling to just under 5,000 the following year.

On housing, Carpenter highlighted that wages have not kept up with housing-purchase costs and that cost-burden rates are disproportionately high for low-income renters. She said nearly all renters in the lowest-income bracket she showed were cost-burdened and that starter homes have appreciated faster than the rest of the market.

Carpenter closed by pointing to an aging population that will more than double the 65-and-over share by 2050 and urged planning for housing, transportation and health-care implications.

The briefing provides local officials and residents with a statistical foundation for upcoming policy and budgeting conversations about affordable housing, transit and long-range planning.