Central Ohio will keep growing over the next three decades, but not the way it used to. A new population forecast from the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC) finds that international migration now accounts for 96 percent of the region’s net migration, even as births fall and deaths rise, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
MORPC’s 15-county region around Franklin County has added 116,900 residents since the April 2020 Census, The Columbus Dispatch reported. That growth came despite a steady drop in births, from 13.8 per 1,000 people in 2010 to 11.6 in 2025, while deaths rose from 7.8 to 8.7 per 1,000 over the same period, driven by an aging population.
“The way we’ve grown in the past isn’t necessarily the way we’ll grow in the future,” William Murdock, MORPC’s executive director, told a small group on Nov. 10 during a panel discussion at the commission’s Brewery District headquarters, according to The Columbus Dispatch. Murdock presented the new forecast as a planning tool for businesses, local governments and other decision-makers.
The commission’s numbers put hard figures behind that shift. Newcomers from other countries account for 68,113 new residents, The Columbus Dispatch reported, while people moving in from other U.S. states account for the rest of net migration. Central Ohio is also a destination for people leaving rural parts of the state.
Looking ahead, MORPC’s new model projects the 15-county region — an area larger than the usual understanding of central Ohio, stretching from Marion County to Ross County — will hold between 2.7 million and 3.12 million people by 2055, a range of about 420,000 residents. Natural decline, the point at which deaths exceed births, is expected to begin around 2040 and continue from there, which makes migration the deciding factor in which end of that range the region reaches.
“It’s very helpful to have this range, which tells us that it’s very reasonable and grounded in the data to plan for between 2.7 and 3.1 million people. Not five million, not population loss,” Murdock told The Columbus Dispatch. “These numbers may seem a little esoteric, but they lead to real-world applications for how we’re investing,” Murdock also told The Columbus Dispatch.
The stakes are concrete. MORPC helps guide billions of dollars in transportation decisions that connect residents to jobs, and the forecast lands as employers including Honda, data centers and Anduril expand or relocate in central Ohio. Growth on that scale is already straining local infrastructure, as NewsForce247 reported in its coverage of the Winchester Pike bridge over U.S. 33, which closes Nov. 20 for a year-plus rebuild.
Economist Bill LaFayette, a contributor to the MORPC study, told The Columbus Dispatch the forecast should be read against a global slowdown in growth, noting United Nations projections that world population will peak around 2080 at just over 10 billion before declining. U.S. projections follow a similar pattern, LaFayette told The Columbus Dispatch.
Housing is where residents may feel the forecast first. A recent survey cited in The Columbus Dispatch’s reporting found 38 percent of central Ohioans cannot find affordable housing, and planners say workforce, housing and education decisions will increasingly depend on who is moving to the region and what they need. At the southern edge of MORPC’s map, the same pressures are playing out in Ross County, where NewsForce247 reported Chillicothe’s mayor warning that the paper mill loss is squeezing the city budget.
Adam Porr, MORPC’s assistant director for data projection, told The Columbus Dispatch that the three-tier projection is built to help employers and communities think about the workforce needed to fill coming jobs. “Migration is part of the story whether it is domestic or international,” Porr told The Columbus Dispatch. “Part of the message to the region is that this is a great problem to have, but if we’re going to continue to be an attractive place — for investment, jobs or facilities — we have to work on migration strategies, no matter where they come from.”
Murdock told The Columbus Dispatch that the region’s reputation as welcoming and relatively affordable is an advantage that better data can strengthen. What happens next is in the hands of the region’s city councils, county commissions, school boards and employers, which will use the 2.7-to-3.12 million range to size roads, water systems, housing and classrooms long before 2055 arrives.