Stagnation City! ABQ's population grows by 107 people. Pathetic!

Albuquerque continues to reign as Stagnation City. In the year that ended July 1, 2018, the city's population grew by 107 people—that's right, you can count them—or 0.019 percent, according to population estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

If it weren't for El Paso, which lost 269 people, Albuquerque would have the most miserable growth rate of any major city in the region.

As of July 1, 2018, Albuquerque's population was 560,218. That was up from a population of 560,111 in 2017.

Since 2010, the city's population has grown by 13,412, or 2.4 percent. For eight years, that's pathetic.

What it all means is that there ain't no opportunity in this backwater city. People move to cities that have good jobs and lots of opportunity. And they ain't moving to Albuquerque.

Denver, for instance, is booming. In the past year it gained 11,053 residents, for a 1.6 percent growth rate.

Phoenix's population grew by 25,288, or 1.5 percent.

So what's the fastest growing major city—50,00 or more—in New Mexico? Rio Rancho. In the 12 months that ended July 1, 2018, Rio Rancho's population grew by 1,797 people, or 1.9 percent.

A big surprise was Las Cruces. It's population increased by 958, or 0.9 percent.

Santa Fe had, a population increase—365 people—but it too was minuscule at 0.4 percent.

Now, there is a lot of debate over population growth, especially in the Southwest and the West. Phoenix is a monstrosity and hard to get around in, and Denver is basically unaffordable for normal working people.

But growth means opportunity, and stagnation means no opportunity. As I've been reporting on for a long time, New Mexico has had a net outmigrtation for several years. That means more people have been leaving here than moving here. That's not good.

So here's a look at the population trends in some graphs: