Why Is Hattiesburg Growing So Slowly Inside the City Limits?

Mississippi as a whole isn’t exactly known for population growth. Here in Hattiesburg, we take pride in bucking that trend.  But that’s not the full story. To borrow from my buddy Charlie Dickens, it’s a tale of two cities. The Hattiesburg Metropolitan Statistical Area (the Census Bureau’s term for the wider region including Petal, Oak Grove, Purvis, etc.) has been growing at a healthy clip. The City of Hattiesburg itself? Not nearly as fast.

Between 2000 and 2020, the MSA grew from 124,000 to 154,000, a 24% increase. Inside the city limits, we only grew from 45,000 to 49,000 — a mere 9%. You can argue over census quirks, COVID count issues, or the fine print of MSA boundaries, but the math remains simple: areas outside the city limits are growing 3 to 4 times faster than the city itself.

One way to see the problem is through housing permits. The City has averaged issuing 43 permits a year for new single-family homes over the past five years. That’s against a backdrop of roughly 11,000 existing single-family homes. A 0.4% annual replacement rate doesn’t even cover the houses we lose to fire or other causes. Take out a couple of newer subdivisions like Shadow Ridge and Vintage Springs, and the picture is obvious to anyone driving around: we’ve basically stopped building in Hattiesburg’s established neighborhoods. Meanwhile, Oak Grove and Sumrall look like D.R. Horton billboards.

So why the gap? The three most common explanations I hear are white flight, school quality, and city taxes. All are real issues.  But white flight was much harsher in the ’70s and ’80s than in this century. And have y’all been paying attention to HPSD lately? They’re bringing home the A ratings, and it’s a turnaround we should all be shouting from the rooftops. Taxes are higher than I’d like, but we do get actual city services for them. Complain all you want about how long you might have to wait on Animal Control, but out in the county you’d better be ready to put that rabid dog down yourself, Kristi Noem-style.

Honestly, I think those reasons are excuses masking the real problem. If folks truly wanted to avoid the city, you’d expect to see a discount in home prices. The data doesn’t seem to show that. A new house in Vintage Springs ($186/sqft, 115 S Founders Way) or Shadow Ridge ($175/sqft, 21 Waverly Ct) sells for prices that compare favorably to Oak Grove ($178/sqft, 67 E Andover) or Petal ($161/sqft, 29 Vermont Drive).  Again, we can quibble with a random sample of houses for sale on Realtor.com, but prove me wrong if you disagree.  Generally, I think the economics of new home construction – cost to build and sale price received – aren’t that different for comparable houses and neighborhoods inside or outside the city limits.

 It’s not a land shortage, either. Since starting my East Hattiesburg project, I’ve bought over 80 residential lots — at an average price of less than $2,000 apiece. City GIS data shows thousands of vacant parcels zoned for single-family residential use that are large enough to build on today. These lots already have road, sewer, water, electricity, and gas. Mostly, they’re flat, out of the floodplain, and basically turnkey. The expensive work that the developer had to go through to get a lot in a subdivision like Vintage Springs ready to sell for $34,500 has already been done here.

Hattiesburg has tons to offer, which is why our family chooses to live inside the city limits. Major employers, restaurants, shopping, art, culture, healthcare, two colleges — it’s all inside the city limits. Plus, who hasn’t cursed the grind of driving in from out west? That traffic is brutal. So if the city is where the jobs and amenities are, why aren’t we building houses here?

My frustration with how much blight we allow is well established. Nobody wants to build near a blighted structure. But more than that, I think we made it too hard to build. Hattiesburg’s 171-page land development code is a hurdle few builders want to clear. In Lamar County, you don’t even need a permit to get started. Why wrestle with red tape when you can make the same money developing a house out west? In historic neighborhoods, the process is even tougher. Best case, it’s a 90-day slog to get a single-family house approved in my North Main neighborhood. To be clear, there are reasons for the rules – just ask my old neighbors out in Dixie who are now dealing with a massive truck stop next door to them.  But over time, the development community migrated outward. And the city flatlined.

But here’s the good news: I am far from doom and gloom on this issue. For the first time in decades, I think the City of Hattiesburg is demonstrating a real openness to change. We are finally beginning to deal with blight in this city.  As for construction itself, I’d love to cut 50 pages from the development code.  However, the city is exploring pre-approved shortcuts that could make a real difference. If things keep moving in this positive direction, you’ll see another post from me in a few months — maybe alongside an announcement.