Houston is bucking the trend that plagues many of its peers. Of the nation’s 100 most populous cities, 43 lost population between ’21 and ’23. For some, the population losses were significant.

Though Houston’s most recent gains were modest, 他们是可持续的, unlike those of the Fracking Boom (’11-’14) when the city averaged 40,每年有1000名新居民. Houston’s gains also rank among the largest of the nation’s 19,000 towns and cities.

The cities enjoying the most robust growth have several characteristics in common. First, they’re in metro areas that quickly recovered their pandemic job losses.  Employment in these regions is at an all-time high.

The nation’s fastest growing cities are also in 地铁 where the cost of living is substantially lower than cities that are losing population. The data in the following chart comes from the Council for Community and Economic Research’s quarterly 生活费用 Index, 它检查住房, 实用程序, 食物, 卫生保健, and transportation costs in 264 metro areas. The index does not factor in local taxes.

The nation’s fastest growing cities are also in metro areas where housing tends to be more affordable.

Cities with the largest gains also tend to have lower state tax burdens. Conversely, the cities with shrinking populations tend to have higher tax burdens.

其他因素也在起作用. For instance, except for Seattle, the nation’s fastest growing cities tend to be in the sunbelt. 

休斯顿排名

The City of Houston’s population now exceeds 2.3 million, ranking it as the nation’s fourth most populous city. Five of the nation’s most populous cities are now in Texas. San Antonio is the nation’s seventh most populous and could overtake No. 6 Philadelphia by the end of the decade.

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Note: The geographic area referred to in this publication as “Houston,” "Houston Area” and “Metro Houston” is the ten-county Census designated metropolitan statistical area of Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX. 这十个县是:奥斯汀, Brazoria, 钱伯斯, 本德堡, 加尔维斯顿, 哈里斯, 自由, 蒙哥马利, 圣哈辛托, 和沃勒.