Kingsport Spirit

Don Fenley recently wrote that the Tri-Cities Needs Newcomers To Prevent Decline. I couldn’t agree more.

Adding my two cents, all growth is not automatically “good.” The practical question is whether a region is adding people at a pace that keeps its economy and tax base healthy without forcing schools, roads, utilities, and public safety into permanent catch-up. As a rule-of-thumb, I like 5%–10% population growth per decade as the “just right” band. It is not magic; it is simply a range that often aligns with the lead times and financing realities of local government.

Using the 2020 Census to July 1, 2024 population-change figures, Johnson City MSA grew +3.70%. If you project that four-year pace into a decade (a rough conversion is to multiply by 2.5), that lands around ~9% per decade—squarely “just right.” The Kingsport–Bristol, TN–VA MSA grew +2.04% over the same period. That projects to roughly ~5% per decade, which is near the lower edge of the band: still positive and encouraging.

One reason the Tri-Cities discussion is more nuanced than a single headline number is that Greeneville is micropolitan, and it has its own pace: Greeneville, TN μSA is +4.63% from 2020–2024—about ~11%–12% per decade at the same rough projection, slightly “warm.”

Greeneville’s inclusion in the Tri-Cities Combined Metro is also newly formalized in the federal geography. In OMB’s 2023 delineations, the Johnson City–Kingsport–Bristol CSA is shown as comprising Greeneville μSA plus both MSAs. In OMB’s 2020 delineations, that CSA is shown with only the two MSAs as components. This is why CSA “growth rates” can be misleading if you are not careful: sometimes the geography changed, not the underlying trend.

Peer comparisons help put these numbers into perspective. Johnson City MSA is in the same general population range as a handful of university-oriented metros. Columbia, MO is +4.06% (projecting to ~10% per decade), Charlottesville is +2.62% (~6.5% per decade), and Athens, GA is +3.84% (~9.6% per decade). All three are broadly within or near that “just right” band—different flavors of steady demand, not runaway growth. Then there is the cautionary contrast: Auburn–Opelika, AL is +6.31% in just four years—roughly ~16% per decade if that pace held. That kind of growth can be exciting, but it often pulls affordability, school capacity, and congestion into the political foreground quickly.

Kingsport–Bristol MSA’s comparison set illustrates the other end of the spectrum even more clearly. Similar sized MSA’s include Clarksville, TN–KY is +7.93% (~20% per decade), and College Station–Bryan, TX is +7.16% (~18% per decade)—both “hot,” and Tuscaloosa, AL is +4.95% (~12% per decade), warm but closer to manageable if infrastructure and housing supply keep pace. And then there is the cautionary “cold” example: Roanoke MSA is +0.16%—effectively flat. That contrast matters. A metro that runs too hot spends years arguing about traffic, schools, and housing costs. A metro that runs too cold eventually wrestles with a different set of pressures—labor force constraints, slower business formation, and fixed infrastructure costs spread across fewer (or barely increasing) households.

Greeneville’s micropolitan peer set underscores the same “too hot vs. too cold” reality in smaller markets. Oxford, MS is +5.87% (~15% per decade), Frankfort, KY is +2.56% (~6% per decade), Auburn, NY is −2.20% (decline), and Athens, TN is +7.05% (~18% per decade). Greeneville, at +4.63%, is warmer than “just right” but not in the extreme category—still, it is a reminder that even inside a broader region that feels moderate, some components can be running hotter.

There is a final—and often overlooked—point: growth is almost never evenly distributed across a statistical area. Metro-wide averages conceal the fact that some corridors absorb a disproportionate share of housing demand and traffic. In the Tri-Cities, Jonesborough sits in the bullseye between Kingsport and Johnson City, and Piney Flats between Johnson City and Bristol. These are exactly the kinds of places where the lived experience of growth can feel more intense than the overall MSA number suggests.

One of the most reliable ways to find these hot spots is to listen to citizens. A city planning professor once told me: you can build sidewalks where you want people to walk, or you can watch where they already walk and build them there—especially true on college campuses. The same logic applies to growth management. If a road is getting too congested, if school crowding is becoming visible, if quality of life feels downgraded, people will tell you. That is not automatically NIMBY (not in my back yard); it is the public acting as an early-warning sensor. Locally, I-26 between Kingsport and Johnson City is a real-world example: every new subdivision in that corridor translates into more cars on the interstate. If you live in Johnson City and work in Kingsport (or vice versa), congestion can turn a long-term housing choice into a moving target—because interstate fixes rarely happen quickly; they can take decades.

And here is the quiet truth: not everyone wants to live where growth is running hot. Not everyone wants daily life to depend on an interstate trip. Many households want to be close to opportunity—but a little off the beaten path. By these numbers, Johnson City is currently pacing like the “just right” peers, Kingsport–Bristol is modestly cooler but still positive, and Greeneville is a bit warmer. The regional opportunity is to aim for steady, manageable growth—enough to keep the economy healthy, but disciplined enough to protect the community people are choosing in the first place.