Previously announced data for Boston showed the city increased 4.8 percent to 617,594.
Philadelphia ranked fourth in growth after those peer cities, its population up a scant 0.6 percent, increasing by 8,456, to 1,526,006.
Given the battering absorbed by the big onetime manufacturing centers, that's not a bad ranking, said Cheryl Carleton, an assistant professor of economics and statistics at the Villanova School of Business.
"I think it bodes well," Carleton said. "Overall, with economic conditions as they are, I think Philadelphia has just as much going for it as any other city."
Philadelphia divided the pack of peers, all of which saw increases among Asians and Hispanics, while their white and black populations tended to shrink.
Overall, Baltimore lost 30,193 people, a decrease of 4.6 percent. Chicago lost 200,418, a drop of 6.9 percent.
Pittsburgh dropped 8.6 percent, Cleveland 17.1 percent, and Detroit a staggering 25 percent.
"It's the old story about Philadelphia: We never lose as much as some of our peers, and we never gain tremendously," said David Bartelt, a Temple University professor, who specializes in housing and community development. "The city, I think, has weathered the worst of its population losses."
Bartelt, a coprincipal in the university's Metropolitan Philadelphia Indicators Project, known as MPIP, noted that the city has struggled with issues such as older housing stock. At the same time, Philadelphia hasn't gotten crunched like Cleveland and certainly not like Detroit.
Alan Greenberger, Philadelphia's deputy mayor for economic development, called the city's grouping with other growing peers "a good sign for us."
"The East Coast in general has sort of held its own," he said. "That's probably largely on the back of immigration and its own continued relevance to the country."
Generally, the peer cities saw an exodus of whites and blacks, but dramatic growth among Hispanic and Asian populations.
