Could DFW hit a populations as high as 11-14 million?

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by Dariusb

I wonder between Houston and Dallas which one would be willing to do that?

There is no way either city has the authority to do such a thing. It would have to be the state and that won't happen even after hell freezes over.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by isaidso

DFW could reach 11-14 million by 2050 but a lot of Texas growth will get re-directed to Austin. It's the state capital, has a thriving tech sector, and they're far ahead of Dallas in terms of urban planning.

In what way? Have you been to Austin?

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by Yuri

I guess the physical size of Dallas sprawl might pose itself a geographic barrier. At some point, commute will be so long that further sprawl will become impractical.

That's why I see Dallas reaching 11-12 million by 2050 and then becoming another slow growth metro area.

You know, DFW includes an area of 2.5 million people on its west side called "Fort Worth and environs." The people living there do not commute to Dallas. It is a totally separate city that happens to share a metropolitan area.

[BG918]

Originally Posted by Cory

In what way? Have you been to Austin?

No kidding the suburbs of Austin sprawl just as bad as anything in DFW and Houston. There is an endless amount of flat ranch land on the east side of Austin that is ripe for the kind of sprawl like you see along the 75 corridor north of Dallas or along IH-10 west of Houston. That whole area between Elgin and Bastrop will look like McKinney/Allen in the next 15-20 years

[SFBruin]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

You know, DFW includes an area of 2.5 million people on its west side called "Fort Worth and environs."

Fort what now?

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

You know, DFW includes an area of 2.5 million people on its west side called "Fort Worth and environs." The people living there do not commute to Dallas. It is a totally separate city that happens to share a metropolitan area.

It doesn’t contradict what I said. At one point, when lots of people will be living near TX-OK to the main job clusters will be way too long.

A 14 million people urban area with Dallas density will be way too big to work
as a coherent metro area. One my argue it could densify over the decades, but then, it will go Los Angeles: it will be expensive and that also slows cities down.

[JManc]

Even if the cities were allowed to control their own growth, they would still be confined to their municipal borders. Dallas has no pull on McKinney, Plano or the dozen or so other cities in the metroplex. Houston at least kinda does since it's so geographically huge compared to neighbors and much of the surrounding areas are unincorporated.

[mhays]

It has to be the state.

Otherwise, you're beholden to the suburban/exurban counties -- really the worst-led ones, because even if some counties do better the growth will go to those who don't.

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by Yuri

It doesn’t contradict what I said. At one point, when lots of people will be living near TX-OK to the main job clusters will be way too long.

A 14 million people urban area with Dallas density will be way too big to work
as a coherent metro area. One my argue it could densify over the decades, but then, it will go Los Angeles: it will be expensive and that also slows cities down.

Job centers are fluid, especially in a place with lots of available land. Also who knows how big WFH will be. DFW isn’t beholden to O&G like Houston but is a rather diverse business and logistics hub.

I’m not sure who is buying these houses in Houston with the economy.

[R1070]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

You know, DFW includes an area of 2.5 million people on its west side called "Fort Worth and environs." The people living there do not commute to Dallas. It is a totally separate city that happens to share a metropolitan area.

Yes, a lot of them do actually! The Eastern side of the 'plex has the lion's share of the job centers. I work with a lot of people from all over DFW including Burleson, Joshua, Weatherford, FW, and so on.

[R1070]

Originally Posted by BG918

No kidding the suburbs of Austin sprawl just as bad as anything in DFW and Houston. There is an endless amount of flat ranch land on the east side of Austin that is ripe for the kind of sprawl like you see along the 75 corridor north of Dallas or along IH-10 west of Houston. That whole area between Elgin and Bastrop will look like McKinney/Allen in the next 15-20 years

No kidding. The Austin burbs come off lower density and haphazard without the same level of investment infrastructure for growth.

[Evo5Boise]

What blew my mind is how big Fort Worth is. I mean, I knew it was a big city, but I didn't realize how close they are to breaking over the 1,000,000 threshold (927,720). That's impressive. Is there any other metro area in the United States that has two cities with a population of 1 million anchoring a metro area? I can't think of one!

San Francisco/San Jose is about the closest I can think of.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by R1070

No kidding. The Austin burbs come off lower density and haphazard without the same level of investment infrastructure for growth.

There’s a big reason for that:

Topography. It is just much harder to achieve the same population density and infrastructure connectivity in the hills of all of the Austin boomburbs. Of the existing boomburbs, only half of Round Rock and Pflugerville are flat. The rest is in the Hill Country.

[bossabreezes]

Austin has nothing but flat land directly east of downtown. If you look at the sprawl, most of the newer stuff is on the flat side of the metro and is extremely generic, cookie cutter, bland suburbia you’d see anywhere in any Texas city.

Austin itself has some nice stuff going for it but it’s suburbs are just as soulless as others, perhaps worse to be honest. None of the benefits of the suburbs, like large lots, just houses crammed with little to no personality.

[SFBruin]

Originally Posted by Evo5Boise

What blew my mind is how big Fort Worth is. I mean, I knew it was a big city, but I didn't realize how close they are to breaking over the 1,000,000 threshold (927,720). That's impressive. Is there any other metro area in the United States that has two cities with a population of 1 million anchoring a metro area? I can't think of one!

San Francisco/San Jose is about the closest I can think of.

Yeah, I guess San Jose/San Francisco. Of course, city population isn't that relevant, but the Fort Worth "metro-area" also seems relatively large.

[Shawn]

The point I was trying to make before which I wasn’t clear on: the more a metro sprawls, the harder it is to maintain on basically property taxes alone. Without strong state level support, big cities have a natural growth cap. The Texas cities will be the first really big metros in what we contemporarily define as a Red State.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by TexasPlaya

Job centers are fluid, especially in a place with lots of available land. Also who knows how big WFH will be. DFW isn’t beholden to O&G like Houston but is a rather diverse business and logistics hub.

I’m not sure who is buying these houses in Houston with the economy.

Originally Posted by Shawn

The point I was trying to make before which I wasn’t clear on: the more a metro sprawls, the harder it is to maintain on basically property taxes alone. Without strong state level support, big cities have a natural growth cap. The Texas cities will be the first really big metros in what we contemporarily define as a Red State.

My view is very similar to Shawn's. Even though WFH becomes default (and I really hope not), Dallas will suffer grow pains.

One might argue Tokyo or São Paulo or Buenos Aires or London are big and grow, but Dallas is not a primate city and its growth is also fed by its own growth. At one point it will become too big to grow fast.

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by Shawn

The point I was trying to make before which I wasn’t clear on: the more a metro sprawls, the harder it is to maintain on basically property taxes alone. Without strong state level support, big cities have a natural growth cap. The Texas cities will be the first really big metros in what we contemporarily define as a Red State.

Well sure, but that’s still some ways away. Will Texas be a Red State in two decades? 3 decades when 2050 rolls around? I doubt it and I doubt it will still be relying on its “low tax environment”.

[TexasPlaya]

Originally Posted by Yuri

My view is very similar to Shawn's. Even though WFH becomes default (and I really hope not), Dallas will suffer grow pains.

One might argue Tokyo or São Paulo or Buenos Aires or London are big and grow, but Dallas is not a primate city and its growth is also fed by its own growth. At one point it will become too big to grow fast.

Any large, rapidly growing city suffers those types of pain. I just think it doesn’t follow that the job centers won’t move with the population. DFW has new, large employment centers near the periphery that weren’t there a decade ago or were just forming.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by TexasPlaya

Any large, rapidly growing city suffers those types of pain. I just think it doesn’t follow that the job centers won’t move with the population. DFW has new, large employment centers near the periphery that weren’t there a decade ago or were just forming.

It's not really great to have transient employment centers.