It may be 112 miles away, but it's gaining fast.
Chattanooga is adding people at 6 percent a year, compared to Knoxville's 5.2 percent.
"Chattanooga maybe at some point slip into third place in the state's overall percentage rankings," Tim Kuhn, the director of the Tennessee Data Center, said.
But he says when it comes to population, size isn't everything.
"In some ways, comparing one to the other doesn't really matter," he said.
He said the Knoxville metropolitan area boasts an economy much bigger than our Hamilton County neighbors.
"The size of its economy is about 40 percent larger than the Chattanooga area economy," he said.
Also in this year's report, something anyone who has driven through Nashville knows, that area is growing too.
"If you look at the 10 fastest growing counties about eight of them are in the middle or of the state or in that Nashville area," Kuhn said.
It's mostly migratory growth, people from states like Texas, Florida, Georgia and Kentucky moving here.
(That explains the driving I guess.)
But they're not all moving downtown--it's the suburbs growing fastest.
"There's actually more people moving out of the city of Nashville or Davidson county than are moving in at this point," Kuhn said.
That's the case here at home too.
About seven times more people moved to unincorporated Knox County than to Knoxville itself.