What is the biggest suburb in Houston? (Annexations/ Incorporations/ Future Megaburbs) (Dallas: waterpark, home)

[NigerianNightmare]

So due to a few threads in this forum and others I would like to discuss what is the biggest suburb in Houston. Now to many non-Houstonians this might seem like an easy question it's Pasadena and it has been for decades now. But for Houstonians it's a long contended question.

For time now finding a city over 100,000 in Greater Houston outside of Pasadena was impossible. But over the last decade several have passed that fabled barrier including- Pearland, League City and Sugar Land (in that order).

But even including these cities their are many more suburbs that are much larger but have remained CDPs, mailing addresses, or simply school districts rather than actual towns.

Many of these areas have loosely defined boundaries and is the reason I made this thread. Currently the only city i've seen claim the largest suburb of Houston is Klein, Texas. Which it does on it's Wikipedia page- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klein,_Texas

Now from my perspective the answer is between two unincorporated/unannexed cities- Katy and Cypress. Cy-Fair ISD is home to 600,000+ people vs. Katy ISDs 350,000 people so it seems obvious. But a portion of Cypress ISD is Houston and Jersey Village and a portion of Cypress south of FM 529 and east of 249 is considered Katy and Klein. Now on the opposite end relatively small parts of Katy ISD could be considered Houston and those portions tend to be uninhabited or commercial, and a small portion of Katy ISD is often considered Fulshear (Cross Creek Ranch). So this is where the debate really sparkles.

But even then figuring out the biggest suburb now because of lack of concrete boundaries many of these suburbs and now exurbs can and are swelling in size.

Conroe which wasn't even in the running for biggest suburb in 2010 has probably crossed the 100,000 mark by the end of this year or mid-next year. Fulshear has literally exploded, Tomball, Richmond, Manvel and Alvin are seeing massive growth in their ISDs, which will soon replicate to growth within the towns themselves.

On top of this we could very well see the incorporation of The Woodlands and the annexation of Sienna Plantation and Riverstone and potentially Fifth Street (but that could go to Stafford as well) which would certainly push Missouri City over 100,000 people.

So these are the topics I would like to center the discussions about.

What is the biggest suburb?

What are the populations of the biggest suburbs, their boundaries, where does Cypress, Klein, Spring end and where do they begin?

Any interesting future Annexations?

Future Mega-burbs, what are these cities currently on the periphery of Houston that could become household names by 2030 or 2040?

Who should incorporate and why? This decade saw the rise in 3 cities over 100,000, something we hadn't seen in Houston since the 1970s.

What about the suburban parts of Houston. What I mean often the Beltway 8 and in is considered the city. How does the more traditionally suburban areas outside Beltway 8 neighborhoods match up with the suburbs-
Kingwood, Clear Lake, Memorial/Energy Corridor, Briarforest/77077, Alief/Westchase, Fort Bend Houston Willowbrook.

[KerrTown]

Originally Posted by NigerianNightmare

Now from my perspective the answer is between two unincorporated/unannexed cities- Katy and Cypress. Cy-Fair ISD is home to 600,000+ people vs. Katy ISDs 350,000 people so it seems obvious. But a portion of Cypress ISD is Houston and Jersey Village and a portion of Cypress south of FM 529 and east of 249 is considered Katy and Klein. Now on the opposite end relatively small parts of Katy ISD could be considered Houston and those portions tend to be uninhabited or commercial, and a small portion of Katy ISD is often considered Fulshear (Cross Creek Ranch). So this is where the debate really sparkles.

Keep an eye on the area around Elyson. With the opening of the Grand Parkway, the Northside of Katy (not to be confused with North Katy east of SH-99 but north of I-10) has become accessible to the Houston employment districts in the core. Previously these were farms on a grid with narrow roads as recently as a decade ago.

The 350,000 figure was compiled mid-decade as this section of Katy was opening up. It still is unbelievable that Katy ISD east of SH-99 with North Katy + South Katy + Cinco Ranch (area) could be this populated, but a demographer ran the numbers and this pulled-up. It turned out that the Katy Area is the largest unincorporated suburb in Houston.

I just wonder how populated the Katy Area will become once the Northside is completed in a decade. Perhaps it might add an additional 50-100k residents to the Katy area? The Katy Area might swell between 400,000 to 500,000 in a decade. For perspective, Fort Bend County has 800k currently mostly hugging the Harris County line--and only crossing the Brazos River in the Richmond/Rosenberg county seat area.

Cy-Fair ISD was a consolidation of Cypress and Fairbanks school districts back in 1939. The two townsites are 20 km apart, which is why the school district is geographically large. The Cy-Fair identity stayed popular until the master-planned suburban growth came to the Cypress side. Recently, Cypress been trying to forge their identity apart from Cy-Fair. Considering the size of the area, Cy-Fair has been redefined as exclusively the area between the two townsites.

[NigerianNightmare]

Okay, 350,000 for Katy. But what is the population of Cypress? It seems the core of Cypress is made up of 77433 and 77429 which is 170,000, roughly half of what Katy is, but saying the Katy areas is 350,000 is using the full extent of Katy not just the core 4 zip codes that show up as Katy, Texas when you type them in, you get 343,000 with nearly 60,000 living in Cy-Fair so roughly 283,000, not to mention another 10,000 zoned to Lamar or Royal ISDs, so more like 270,000 folks with a Katy Zip code zone to Katy Schools. So on the smaller end you have 270,000 in Katy and 170,000 in Cypress.

But what about 77095, 77065, 77070? To me it's obvious 77041 and 77040 is unincorporated Harris County and 77069 is the former or Klein and not Cypress. What about 77064 outside Beltway 8 though, Is Winchester area considered Cypress?

Is Wortham considered Cypress, Is Copperfield considered Cypress? Are their 2 Lone Star Campuses in Cypress?

Adding 77095, 77065, 77070 (half of it because half crosses 249) to the 170,000 you get 315,000 people, still below Katy ISDs 350,000 people.
But what about the people in 77084 and 77449 outside of Katy ISD, if Katy's boundaries is it's school district and not the zip code this means their are 115,000 floating people roughly that aren't Katy, because they are north of the ISD in Cy-Fair. Now if these folks are Cypress folks that means Cypress now has 430,000 people in it, and if you want you could throw in parts of 77064, or even 77377 west of 249 in Tomball, is the Northpointe area considered Tomball through and through or Cypress?


So is Cypress 170,000, 315,000 or 430,000 is it even bigger, more like 500,000 people.

My guess it is somewhere between the 170,000 number and the 430,000, but that in itself is a massive range, and could mean Cypress is the biggest suburb, to the second biggest to possibly smaller than Klein or Spring.

This has been discussed but what about the other suburbs, whats Klein, Tomball, Richmond, Manvel, Porter, Spring even Conroe and The Woodlands have developed areas around them that are technically not in either's boundaries.

[KerrTown]

Originally Posted by NigerianNightmare

Okay, 350,000 for Katy. But what is the population of Cypress? It seems the core of Cypress is made up of 77433 and 77429 which is 170,000, roughly half of what Katy is, but saying the Katy areas is 350,000 is using the full extent of Katy not just the core 4 zip codes that show up as Katy, Texas when you type them in, you get 343,000 with nearly 60,000 living in Cy-Fair so roughly 283,000, not to mention another 10,000 zoned to Lamar or Royal ISDs, so more like 270,000 folks with a Katy Zip code zone to Katy Schools. So on the smaller end you have 270,000 in Katy and 170,000 in Cypress.

But what about 77095, 77065, 77070? To me it's obvious 77041 and 77040 is unincorporated Harris County and 77069 is the former or Klein and not Cypress. What about 77064 outside Beltway 8 though, Is Winchester area considered Cypress?

Is Wortham considered Cypress, Is Copperfield considered Cypress? Are their 2 Lone Star Campuses in Cypress?

Adding 77095, 77065, 77070 (half of it because half crosses 249) to the 170,000 you get 315,000 people, still below Katy ISDs 350,000 people.
But what about the people in 77084 and 77449 outside of Katy ISD, if Katy's boundaries is it's school district and not the zip code this means their are 115,000 floating people roughly that aren't Katy, because they are north of the ISD in Cy-Fair. Now if these folks are Cypress folks that means Cypress now has 430,000 people in it, and if you want you could throw in parts of 77064, or even 77377 west of 249 in Tomball, is the Northpointe area considered Tomball through and through or Cypress?


So is Cypress 170,000, 315,000 or 430,000 is it even bigger, more like 500,000 people.

My guess it is somewhere between the 170,000 number and the 430,000, but that in itself is a massive range, and could mean Cypress is the biggest suburb, to the second biggest to possibly smaller than Klein or Spring.

This has been discussed but what about the other suburbs, whats Klein, Tomball, Richmond, Manvel, Porter, Spring even Conroe and The Woodlands have developed areas around them that are technically not in either's boundaries.

I think the 350,000 came from a demographer retained by Katy ISD. He used district boundaries, which were beneficial because the Addicks and Barker Reservoirs are good setbacks from Houston.

In general, school district boundaries make up the boundaries between the Houston suburbs, followed by major state highways/freeways, rivers/bayous, arterial roads, and railroad tracks in that order.

ZIP codes are rarely used since the Postal Service arbitrarily created them and decided not to follow Houston's development style as they mapped and assigned codes. (They cater to the majority American model of incorporated suburbs.) I only used them in the Spring thread because the regional code generally followed FM 1960. I'm just surprised that the Post Office does not fix the primary postal city since ZIP was popularized in 1963. (Houston, Dallas, and the rest of Texas was tiny during the Kennedy assassination era.)

I will define Cypress as everything north of Clay Rd, West of Beltway 8, West of the railroad track, and inside SH-99.

Fairbanks doesn't really matter anymore since the townsite is now inside the Houston city limits and the amalgamation with Cypress schools. The best that I can do is everything inside Beltway 8, north of Clay and west of Bingle/North Houston-Rosslyn.

But in reality, the area between FM 1960 and Beltway 8 is blurred into Cy-Fair.

To calculate the population numbers within these boundaries, Cy-Fair ISD might need to hire their own demographer! Calculating from ZIP codes can be erroneous and time consuming.

[ParaguaneroSwag]

Very good post, Nigerian. It's indeed a difficult question to ask as it depends on what you define. One can easily look up the second largest city by population, and it'll be Pasadena with 122K.

But as us Houstonians know, city limits don't define a suburb, and suburbs don't have to have city status. That's when we see Cypress with a 180K+ in population.

However, neither Cypress nor Pasadena have the claim, as the Greater Katy area has been estimated to have a 300K+ population for a while. I grew up spending a lot of time in Katy, and none of us ever defined Katy by the city limits (which has a mere 21K in population). Us Venezuelans self labeled Katy as Katyzuela for its large Venezuelan community, but most of that community wasn't in Katy the city, but instead in Cinco Ranch.

A long long time ago, Greater Katy was mostly a bedroom community with a strip mall here and there. Today, its ever growing. La Centerra has replaced Katy Mills for the favorite local mall. Katy now has its own Chinatown. Typhoon Texas is a waterpark that transforms into an ice skating rink on weekends. The CBD of Katy is under construction as the Katy Boardwalk. One no longer ever has to leave Katy for anything really. And of course, as a Venezuelan, I'm attracted to the area for having the best food of the region. Katy is neither classy and judgmental like the Woodlands nor too white. It has a thriving hispanic, black and Asian community. A good amount of companies are headquartered nearby, using Katy as the great logistics hubs it is such as Academy, Igloo, Salata and so forth. And I give 0 care for this, but people love how Katy High School's team is always on top.

However even with all that, none of those are what makes Katy my favorite suburb. To me, the difference maker is how close it is to central Houston. That's what I really like!

P.S. I don't know if you saw this, but League City recently became the 4th city of the decade to eclipse 100K+ in the decade. Bringing our new total to 5 or 6 (depending on if you include Cypress).

[Dopo]

Problem is that there’s not clearly defined border to Suburbs in Houston
We were just talking in another threat about Klein and Spring
Nobody knows where they begin and where they end