Chattanooga Challenges Knoxville in Census

KNOXVILLE (WATE) -- Knoxville could be on track to lose its spot as Tennessee's third largest city. New census numbers show Knoxville just edges out Chattanooga by about 14,000 people.

Knoxville's population is 184,802 while Chattanooga's is 170,880.

Not only is Chattanooga catching up, the city is actually growing at a faster rate than Knoxville.

"I have somewhat jokingly said to my friend Bill Haslam that I am coming for you," says Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield.

Although it's a friendly competition, the race is very much underway. Littlefield says Chattanooga officials hope to unseat Knoxville in four years.

With only a small gap to close between the two cities, Chattanooga officials say they're banking on young people, the group multiplying the fastest so far.

"I think young people are an indicator on how attractive your city is. They are the ones that are mapping out the future," Littlefield says.

Knoxville senior director of policy and communication Bill Lyons says Chattanooga's population boom comes as no surprise.

"The mayor over there has recently put forth a very aggressive annexation plan to annex everything in the urban growth boundary, which obviously would add a lot of people. The city of Knoxville has no plans to do an aggressive annexation," Lyons says.

Annexation, a controversial issue, is not part of Knoxville's growth plan, according to Lyons. Instead, he says Knoxville is more concerned with the quality of growth.

"I personally have zero nervousness with the population count in Chattanooga," Lyons says.

He explains that's because there would be no big impact on the amount of state or federal dollars doled out. Lyons says the ranking would be more about bragging rights than anything else.

Although Knoxville may not be given any less money if it moves down a notch, state officials say the change would affect the amount of shared tax revenue a city receives.

County numbers paint a different picture than comparing the city numbers between Chattanooga and Knoxville. The 2008 census estimates show Knox County leading Hamilton County by nearly 100,000 people.

Knox County has also grown at more than 12.5 percent over the past eight years, compared to just over eight percent for Hamilton County.