I think TX needs more major metropolitan areas outside of the TX Triangle, El Paso-Las Cruces, and the Rio Grande Valley (Houston: rental market, insurance)

[turf3]

My God, Texas already has three of the ten largest cities in the US. What do you mean, we need "more metropolitan areas"?

[I Love Buildings]

I actually agree with OP. We need to size Houston up to a Mega-o-polis city and then focus on merging San Antonio sprawl with Austin's. Next we focus on more coastal metros to eventually rival those of California's one day.

South Padre is the next San Diego.

[Mark Senior]

Originally Posted by I Love Buildings

I actually agree with OP. We need to size Houston up to a Mega-o-polis city and then focus on merging San Antonio sprawl with Austin's. Next we focus on more coastal metros to eventually rival those of California's one day.

South Padre is the next San Diego.

South Padre is the next San Diego? Say what, there is hardly anyone on South Padre now. Where is that growth to come from and is that over the next three hundred years. I think I must be missing something here, seriously?

The first part about Houston and S.A. and Austin, if the world holds together long enough then, someday on that one, maybe.

[Clever nickname here]

San Diego is what is because of its climate. South Padre doesn't have a favorable climate but does have hurricane issues and months of 85+ degree weather. San Diego is within a couple hours of LA. South Padre is 5 hours or more from Houston and San Antonio. With climate change South Padre won't be in island in 50 years.

As for shipping and another port-

The Houston ship channel is huge and largely a protected area from hurricanes.

The waters off Texas are fairly shallow and there is cut dredged to 45ft for 30+ miles off the coast for shipping in and out of Houston. The new canal across Central America is going to allow for ships with a much deep draft(ship below the waterline) and Houston as already started the process of dredging to cut deep enough for those ships.

Houston has I-10 and I-45 and I-69 running through it for trucking goods whereas Corpus would add an addition 200-250 miles of road transportation needed for any goods going north of Houston.

[mrfoe]

Originally Posted by peterlemonjello

What about Waco/Temple/Killeen? Could that one day be a CSA? If it was, the population would be around 715k.

South Killeen is growing crazy fast now. Its slowly growing towards Austin. Killeen is leaning more towards Austin than Waco.

[KerrTown]

Originally Posted by I Love Buildings

I actually agree with OP. We need to size Houston up to a Mega-o-polis city and then focus on merging San Antonio sprawl with Austin's.

Why not just collapse everything along the I-35 corridor into the Houston area instead?

Originally Posted by turf3

My God, Texas already has three of the ten largest cities in the US. What do you mean, we need "more metropolitan areas"?

Spread out the population so it doesn't get too crowded in this state. But there is a tradeoff of making business difficult to conduct with a spread-out population instead of consolidating into one (or a few) major city. Why do you think everyone in The Philippines lives in Manila?

[DisraeliGears]

Texas has plenty of huge cities as it is, but just to add my two cents...

I definitely can envision Austin/San Antonio becoming more like Ft. Worth/Dallas as urban creep industrializes the I-35 corridor. Aside from that, I only see the growth of Houston and DFW. The idea of creating new big cities, or investing in old ones, is absolutely pointless, and folly to boot. The free market creates cities and enables them to grow. By no means am I wedded to free market orthodoxy, but planned cities? I feel like the overwhelming evidence of history points to organic growth.

Unless new resources are discovered, future urban growth is likely to expand from already urbanized areas rather than new foundations (or from formerly suburban or small urban areas). Just like the US economy, the rich get richer. Houston and DFW will continue to grow while cities like Amarillo and Brownsville stagnate. In the last few decades, the Dallas urban area expanded north from Richardson to Plano and now to McKinney. How long till it reaches Sherman/Denison and the Okie border?

As for port facilities, Texas certainly isn't lacking. Houston and Corpus provide excellent water access, and the Golden Triangle (where I'm currently living) is tremendously underrated with regard to economic activity in Texas. The problem is that the island buffers that insulate Texas from the Gulf means that actual natural harbors are hard to come by in Texas and most require significant funding. I'm actually designing a lesson about how the Golden Triangle became a shipping hub, and in it's natural state Sabine Pass couldn't handle ships beyond an 8 foot draft. Sabine Pass and Aransas Pass (Corpus) basically had to beg the US government for funding to dredge in the 1890s.

I'm rambling, but Texas is plenty big. I don't understand why we would need more large cities. We're already the 2nd most populous state, and our economy is larger than numerous nations.

[Clever nickname here]

Availability of water is another limiting factor for there to be any other big city in Texas.

[Soonhun]

DisraeliGears got me thinking. What if the capital of Texas was moved to a secondary city? After all, Austin has "grown up" and is a large city in its own right. I'm sure if the capital was moved to, say, Amarillo or Lubbock (random examples), the city will grow quicker and have a better chance of eventually reaching a million residents.

[turkeytrot]

More and more californians are moving to Texas every year. They seem hell bent to make Texas more like California so, lets just make the capital Sacramento now and avoid the rush.