Raleigh Reaches 500,000 Residents, Mayor Warns City Must Keep Building
Raleigh hit 516,807 residents, ranking 40th among U.S. cities — just ahead of Miami — as Mayor Janet Cowell warned the city must keep building.
Raleigh now counts 516,807 residents within its city limits, Mayor Janet Cowell announced Wednesday, placing the capital 40th among U.S. cities and just ahead of Miami on the list of the nation's largest. The milestone, confirmed by North Carolina State Demographer Michael Cline, marks a city that has added 100,000 residents since 2009 and shows no sign of slowing.
"Not only have we built a lot," Cowell said, "we're going to have to keep building."
The growth is already straining the city's capacity to keep pace. In the past year alone, Raleigh granted 4,000 building permits. Cowell projects another 250,000 residents arriving over the next two decades, a trajectory that will push Wake County's broader metro population well beyond its current 1.2 million. To fund the infrastructure that growth demands, the city is likely to place two $101.5 million bonds on the fall ballot: one targeting affordable housing and one directed at transportation projects.
The city's physical footprint is also being remade. A new City Hall valued at more than $200 million is now more than half-complete, and Cowell suggested she may deliver next year's State of the City address inside it.
Cline's office reported that Raleigh grew by 33,000 people between April 1, 2020 and July 1, 2024, adding more residents than any other North Carolina municipality except Charlotte, which gained 70,000 people over the same period and reached a population of 945,000 by July 1, 2024. The growth extended across the Triangle and beyond: Wendell, also in Wake County, grew 73 percent during that stretch, adding more than 7,000 people to reach 17,000 residents. Wilmington gained 11,000 new residents, Leland added 10,000, and Concord, near Charlotte, added another 10,000. Over three-quarters of all North Carolina municipalities grew between 2020 and 2024, with the fastest gains concentrated near the state's largest urban areas and along the coast.
Cowell's State of the City speech wove poetry throughout its presentation of Raleigh's growth, with every member of the City Council participating in readings. She closed the address by announcing the city will accept applications for its first poet laureate.
"We do a lot of things in the city that are concrete and you think will last forever," she said, "but what really endures is the people.
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