Jacksonville Just Became America’s Tenth Largest City

This creates a compounding effect

More jobs attract more talent. More talent attracts more companies. More companies create infrastructure that attracts even more talent. The cycle accelerates when the foundational elements align.

And Jacksonville has those elements.

The city’s consolidated city-county government structure eliminates duplicate services and bureaucratic friction. This isn’t just administrative efficiency. It translates to faster permitting, clearer regulations, and lower operational overhead for businesses trying to scale.

Florida ranks number one in the U.S. for new business formation. That’s not coincidence. It’s the result of deliberate policy choices around capital investment credits, no sales tax on raw materials for manufacturing, and streamlined business development processes.

I’m watching migration patterns closely because they reveal where people believe opportunity exists. Jacksonville recorded a 9% increase in inbound moves, with nearly 3,000 more new households arriving from outside the market compared to the prior year.

The origin cities matter.

Double-digit percentage gains came from Georgia, New York, Tennessee, Michigan, Arizona, and California. The top three source markets were Los Angeles, Washington DC, and New York. These aren’t retirees. They’re working-age professionals relocating for career opportunities.

What makes this pattern different from previous Sun Belt booms?

The job growth is concentrated in high-skill, high-wage sectors. Private education and health services added 6,200 jobs in 2023, a 4.8% increase. The private sector overall added 24,200 jobs, representing 3.4% employment growth.

These aren’t service jobs supporting retiree populations. They’re knowledge economy positions that create multiplier effects throughout the local economy.

The projection of 45% job growth over the next decade sounds aggressive until you examine the current trajectory. Through November 2024, the area’s private sector employment grew an additional 1.5%, adding 10,600 jobs. The momentum is measurable and sustained.

I think what we’re seeing in Jacksonville represents a broader reorganization of American economic geography.

For decades, opportunity concentrated in a handful of coastal metros with first-mover advantages in tech and finance. Those cities built self-reinforcing ecosystems that seemed impossible to replicate. But they also created cost structures that eventually became liabilities.

When a cybersecurity professional in San Francisco pays $4,000 for a one-bedroom apartment, and the same professional in Jacksonville pays $1,400, the math changes. Not just for individuals, but for companies calculating total compensation costs.

Jacksonville offers something increasingly rare: the infrastructure of a major metro without the friction costs.

The city has a deep-water port, an international airport, fiber connectivity, universities producing technical talent, and a cost of living that allows companies to offer competitive salaries that go further. These aren’t sexy differentiators. They’re fundamental requirements for sustained economic growth.

The implications extend beyond Jacksonville

If mid-sized cities with the right infrastructure can capture talent and capital previously reserved for mega-metros, we’re entering a period of economic decentralization. Not because of remote work, but because the cost-benefit analysis of location has fundamentally shifted.

Companies are realizing they don’t need to be in San Francisco to access technical talent. Talent is realizing they don’t need to accept San Francisco costs to access opportunity. This mutual recognition is what drives migration at scale.

Jacksonville’s unemployment rate remains low even as population surges. That’s the signature of genuine economic expansion rather than speculative growth. Jobs are being created faster than population increases, maintaining tight labor market conditions that benefit workers.

I’m not suggesting Jacksonville becomes the next Silicon Valley. That’s not the point.

The point is that economic opportunity is becoming geographically distributed in ways that favor cities with infrastructure, policy environments, and quality of life that can compete on fundamentals rather than legacy advantages.

Jacksonville crossed one million residents because it created conditions for sustained job growth in high-value sectors. The city is now the tenth largest in America not through annexation or statistical quirks, but through genuine population increase driven by economic opportunity.

That’s worth paying attention to.