PROGRESS: Howard County bucking population trends

Tyler Juranovich, Kokomo Tribune, Ind.
·2 min read

Fresh off the Great Recession, a 2008 Forbes article deemed Kokomo the third “fastest-dying town” in the U.S. due to decreasing incomes and in-migration numbers in large part because of the economic struggles of Howard County’s largest employer, Chrysler.

Unsurprisingly, population projections for Howard County were not kind, with researchers then expecting the county to lose 10% of its population by 2050.

Then, in 2020’s U.S. Census, the county and Kokomo both gained population compared to 2010.

According to the 2020 Census, Howard County has 83,658 residents. That’s lower than 84,964 in 2000 but higher than 2010 when its population was reported to be 82,752. The county’s peak population was recorded in 1980 at 86,896.

Local officials credited quality of life efforts, such as Kokomo’s trail system, improvements to the city’s parks and revitalization efforts of the downtown, as key to the growth.

For a county not close to any of the state’s major metropolitan areas, the growth is impressive and makes Howard County part of an anomaly in north central Indiana.

Other nearby counties have not been so lucky when it comes to population growth.

All of Howard County’s neighboring counties — Miami, Grant, Tipton, Clinton, Cass and Carroll — have lost population since 2010.

In 2010, Miami County’s population was 36,903. Now, it's 35,962, a 2.5% decrease.

Grant County’s population in 2010 was recorded at 70,061. In 2020, it was 66,674, a 4.8% decrease.

To the south, in Tipton County, population in 2010 was 15,936. In 2020, it was 15,359.

In 2010, the Census recorded 33,224 residents in Clinton County. In 2020, that number stood at 33,190.

Cass County’s population was 38,966 in 2010. That decreased to 37,870 in 2020.

Carroll County is the only neighboring county to see its population grow between the Census, from 20,011 in 2010 to 20,306 in 2020.

Three of those counties — Cass, Grant and Miami — were recently labeled as “distressed” by Michael Hicks, a professor of economics at Ball State University.

Hicks defines “distressed” as counties that have “lower than average levels of education, below expected levels of agglomerations and low quality of life.”

Still, despite the bucking of the trend, Howard County will need to fight declining birth rates and expected slowing migration to continue the upward population trend.

Most recent projections foresee population in the county to continue to increase through 2030 but ultimately decline by 2050.