2020 U.S. Census data, after delay, shows how much Horry County has grown
Over the past 10 years, Horry County has grown rapidly. You can see it with your eyes.
Now, data from the 2020 U.S. Census illustrates just how significant that growth has been.
On Thursday, the U.S. Census Bureau released the first tranche of data from the 2020 survey and showed that Horry County gained 81,738 residents between 2010 and 2020. That equates to more than 8,100 people moving to the county every year for the past decade.
In the 2010 Census, the federal government counted 269,291 people living in Horry County. As of last spring, that total rose to 351,029, which is a 35% increase.
Horry County’s growth has been so rapid, it’s ranked as the 29th fastest growing county in the U.S., and the fastest in South Carolina. The Census Bureau reported the number of adults in Horry County grew by 34.9%. Other fast-growing counties are concentrated in the South and West, in states like Florida, Georgia and Texas.
The Trump administration, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic, caused the release of the 2020 Census data to be delayed, and the federal government will release more data in the near future.
Thursday’s data release focuses on total population, race and ethnicity and housing occupation. Further data collected by the Census Bureau will be released in September and into 2022. Census data is used to help government leaders at all levels make decisions such as where to build roads and hospitals, where to draw political district lines and how billions of federal dollars are distributed.
Overall, the 2020 Census counted 331,449,281 in the United States as of April 1, 2020. That represents a growth in population, though the country’s population is lower than it has been in decades past, Census Bureau officials told reporters on Thursday.
The population of white Americans also fell below 60% for the first time in centuries, according to the data.
In South Carolina, the Census counted 5,118,425 people, an increase of 493,061 over the 2010 total.
In Horry County, more white people than any other race moved to the county in the past ten years. The data shows that of the 82,000 new residents the county added, nearly 56,000 were white, 16,000 identified as multi-racial, 4,000 identified as “other” and 3,700 identified as Black.
The county’s population growth also changes its status in South Carolina. In 2010, Horry County was the fifth largest county, behind Greenville, Richland, Charleston and Spartanburg counties, respectively. As of 2020, Horry County is now the fourth largest county, beating out Spartanburg County in population for the first time.
Where the growth occurred
Horry County’s cities accounted for some of its growth, but unincorporated areas accounted for a higher share of the growth. Between the incorporated cities — Aynor, Loris, Conway, Briarcliff Acres, Surfside Beach, Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach and Atlantic Beach — the population grew by about 22,000. Myrtle Beach, Conway and North Myrtle Beach showed the largest population gains, adding 8,600, 7,700 and 5,000 new residents, respectively.
And the growth also didn’t center in areas that are designated as “places” by the Census Bureau. Between areas like Socastee, Forestbrook, Garden City and Little River, Horry County added about 8,100 new residents.
Taken together, that means that nearly 52,000 of the newcomers to Horry County located in parts of the county that are not incorporated as cities or towns and are not Census-designated places.
That means places like Carolina Forest, Burgess and the suburbs outside of Conway all saw immense growth over the past decade.
Despite the growth, though, several places in Horry County lost population. Atlantic Beach, with a current population of 195, lost 139 people. And Bucksport, with a population of 745, lost 131 people.
Quantifying ongoing issues
With hard, accurate numbers on Horry County’s growth for the first time in a decade, it’s now possible to quantify the population increases residents — both newcomers and those who have lived here their whole lives — have been seeing. New subdivisions with hundreds of homes are approved monthly at Horry County meetings, and the addition of new people has caused numerous tensions.
In Carolina Forest, for example, residents complain that developers are crowding too many homes and people in the area, and the county isn’t doing enough to keep up with infrastructure. Earlier this year, residents turned out in droves to oppose new townhomes along Gardner Lacy Road, arguing that if the county extended that road to intersect with International Drive, the increased traffic. they worried about wouldn’t be as bad. Residents in one subdivision even considered gating their community during the debate to cut off traffic from their streets.
Carolina Forest residents at one point in recent years considered incorporating into their own community, though those plans fell through.
And outside of Conway, corridors like Highway 905 and Highway 90 have seen rapid growth, with new neighborhoods popping up along those roads and on the roads branching off of them, like Old Reeves Ferry Road. Along Highway 90, residents have said the rapid growth and lack of infrastructure projects has increased vehicle accidents and traffic fatalities, and that they worry traffic and flooding could cause emergency responders to have a harder time reaching them.
Highway 90, once a farm-to-market road, is now at capacity, county leaders have said, and they plan to institute a rezoning pause to slow down the building there. Only an unmanned volunteer fire station serves the area, though county officials are working to build more.
In the North Myrtle Beach area, too, the county has paused land rezonings along Highway 57 after residents and county council member Harold Worley complained that the density was causing increasing traffic and safety problems.
Residents in other once-rural area, such as the Cates Bay Highway corridor, have also complained publicly about growth and density causing problems.
Even small places like Aynor are seeing newcomers flood their towns. Though Aynor added only 400 people out of the thousands that have moved here, that nearly doubled the town’s population. In 2010, the Census counted 560 people living in Aynor, and 974 last year.
As Horry County continues to grow — and all signs point to the growth not slowing soon — local officials are beginning to respond in kind. In July, for example, Horry County leaders voted to impose impact fees for the first time, a charge on all new construction, and one that area advocates have called for for years. Impact fees will help the county pay for certain infrastructure needs, like new fire stations and new parks.
And as the county has more people to serve, tax increases are coming to pay for increased services. Horry County leaders increased stormwater fees, as well as the millage rate for property taxes, this year to add more stormwater mitigation projects, as well as police officers, firefighters, 911 call takers and other emergency responders.
For residents, the growth has caused once-rural areas they love to be forever changed.
“The growth and change was pretty slow for a long time, you figure development is going to come but we’re growing at such a rapid rate…There’s anxiety involved too,” Tammy Baker, one resident along the Highway 90 corridor who’s been organizing her neighbors to pressure county leaders to better respond to the growth, said earlier this year.
And for Amelia Wood, who’s joined Baker in her efforts, the change from rural to suburban has been hard to witness.
“It makes me feel very bad, and sad, because I moved there 35 years ago and I didn’t move there to be in an urban or suburban area,” she said earlier this week. “It does make me feel sad but that’s just the way life is, so we have to do it the best way we can. That’s all we can do.”
This story was originally published August 12, 2021 at 3:57 PM.
