Locator: 50814TEXAS.
And this is why Texas has nice things.
May 14, 2026 -- same story, different slant, from The WSJ -- link here --
The future of American cities is in the exurbs.
The latest Census Bureau data show that some of the fastest-growing
cities are often sitting in the distant orbit of a larger city and
centered on booming master-planned communities.
Take Fulshear, Texas, an affluent community about 35 miles west of
downtown Houston. By mid-2025 it had an estimated 64,630 people, the
Census Bureau said Thursday, rocketing up from around 17,000 in 2020. No
other American city with more than 50,000 people has grown faster in
that span.
Here are some other hot spots and trends from the latest census data,
focusing on city populations for the 12 months running through June
2025.
The Dallas area is sprinkled with fast-growing exurbs, even as the city
itself—as well as some closer suburbs—lost population in the last
measured year.
The biggest standout is Celina, Texas, a boomtown on the metro area’s
far northern fringes that features master-planned communities. It added
nearly 13,000 people in the year through mid-2025, boosting its
population to more than 64,400. Houston, population 2.4 million, added
fewer people.
Other fast growers in the region include Fort Worth, the nation’s 10th-largest city.
Dallas, meanwhile, was among the top 10 largest cities that shrank
slightly in the most recent census-measured year, joining New York City
and Los Angeles. The overall U.S. population grew 0.5% in that span,
about half the prior year’s growth, reflecting tighter immigration
restrictions under both the Biden and Trump administrations.
Phoenix, AZ? Similar.
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Reposting from this morning:
Locator: 50807TEXAS.
Cities: Link here.
Across the entire US, across all sizes, the top five cities ranked by growth are in Texas:
- four of them are in the DFW area;
- the fifth is in the Houston area, Fulshear.
- well west of Houston; an extension of Katy, Texas
- Celina: is in the high growth area north of DFW
- Plano, Allen, Frisco, McKinney, Prosper, Celina, Melissa, Anna (farthest north)
- essentially, Dallas already too congested; too expensive; too many homeless -- folks moving north
- Princeton: northeast of DFW; east of McKinney
Nine out of 10 of the largest population gainers in pure numbers were cities in the South because of a healthy job market and its comparative affordability. The biggest numeric gainers were Charlotte, North Carolina; Fort Worth, Texas; San Antonio, Texas; and Celina.
Fort Worth leaped over Jacksonville last year as the 10th most populous U.S. city, putting four Texas cities in the nation's top 10 most populous, with the other cities being Houston, Dallas and San Antonio.
Silicon Valley South and Silicon Valley West: Austin skipped over San Jose for the 12th most populous spot, as Texas’ capital city surpassed 1 million residents for the first time. It is now one of a dozen U.S. cities with 1 million residents or more.
