A Few Question... (Houston, Dallas, San Antonio: employment, stats, move to)

[Leelee]

Right these are some stupid questions but...

Do you think Dallas' population (metro and city) will surpass Houston's in the next 10 years?

Do you think Dallas could ever be the largest city in the US (or in the top 5)?

And will New York be the biggest Us city in 2020?

[socketz]

Not sure how the numbers are allocated per city, but over 400k people per year are expected to move to TX in the next 5 years.

I expect a lion's share of those will move to Dallas because it appears to be the center of new employment in the state. In cities like Mckinney, the population is doubling every year.

If you look:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0763098.html

Dallas is close on San Diego's heel's. I imagine it will catch San Diego, and maybe even Pheonix because of the mass exodus fom those places due to the collasing housing markets.

Also, is it really just Dallas we're talking about ? I mean, Dallas/Fort Worth and the Northern burbs are in Reality one large extended area....we may already be close to Houston. I mean, if you were researching starting a business here, you would include all these areas as one right ?

If we want to catch LA and NYC, then we seriously need to think of new ways to get water into the state and build MUCH larger highways and a better more connected mass transit system.

[KantLockeMeIn]

Including the MSA, Dallas/Fort-Worth is already the 4th largest behind NY, LA, and Chicago. We passed Philly earlier this year with our growth and Philly's decline.

[socketz]

MSA ? Multi-Source Agreement ?

[smuboy86]

Metropolitan Statistical Area. The City of Dallas by it's self will never be in the top 5, in fact City of San Antonio is larger than the City of Dallas. Dallas can't annex any longer.

[aceplace]

Yes, the important measure is the Metro area... the "City of Dallas" is just one of the governments that the metro area is divided into. This distinction is important because people usually drive all over the metro area. Nobody is forced to remain within the Dallas city limits.

And yes, the population of metro DFW is over 6 million, and it is currently the 4th largest metro in the USA. Houston's metro is the 6th largest, with about 5 1/2 million.

[socketz]

Are their stats that include relative size of metro areas ?

That's really the true measure of size.

[smuboy86]

That is what the MSA is. The Dallas MSA is 6 million. The San Antonio MSA is just over 2. The Houston is just over 4 million.

[socketz]

Here's the stats:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...opolitan_areas

This appears to only include Dallas/Arlington and Fort Worth. It seems there would be at least another mill if you counted the Northern/Southern burbs around the metroplex. Where's GoPadge, I bet he has already tallied this up....:-)

Amazing, NY and surrounding areas are 3x our size. It's no wonder I feel like a hillbilly when I go there...

[aceplace]

There is an interesting numeric relationship in the size of the metros from the Wikipedia article.

The number 2 metro, LA, is 2/3 the size of the first, NYC.

The number 3, Chicago, is 1/2 the size of NYC

The 4th, Dallas, is 1/3 the size of NYC.

The following metros tail off from there.