When the millennium began, Queen Creek was a tiny rural outpost of about 4,000 people on the edge of the Phoenix metro area. Visiting it was a hike, and once you were there, it hardly felt like you were in the Valley at all. Indeed, part of Queen Creek sits in Pinal County.
But my, how the times have changed. According to a new study by the personal finance site GOBankingRates, Queen Creek is now the fastest-growing boomtown in Arizona, with a 2023 population exceeding 66,000 residents. Several reports have shown that the town has grown even more since then.
To make that determination — to crown Queen Creek, so to speak — GOBankingRates looked at cities in every state with populations between 25,000 and 500,000 people. Using both 2015 and 2023 data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, the site determined the cities in each state where populations and incomes are surging the most…