According to a report on Globes, among the larger cities of Israel, that being any city with 100000 residents and above, Bet Shemesh is the fastest growing city in Israel for the past decade.

10 years ago, in 2008, Bet Shemesh had a population of 72,780 while the end of 2018 found the population count of Bet Shemesh to sit at 118,676 - growth of 62.3%.

The big cities are mostly in the region between Tel Aviv and Haifa and population statistics show the cities growing, with more cities near the 100k mark expected to break through it in the near future, indicating the preference people have for cities over small towns, and indicating the increasing gap between the cities in the center of the country and the towns in the periphery.