Everything is bigger in Texas, but ironically enough, as one aspect of Texas continues to grow, the state as a whole might begin to feel quite a bit smaller in the upcoming months and years. The guilty culprit? The exploding population.
Texas is home to the top two metros in the entire country that saw the greatest population gain between July 1, 2014 and July 1, 2015, HousingWire reports. Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth experienced population gains of 159,083 and 144,704 residents respectively. And that’s not all; Austin and San Antonio also made the list adding a combined total of over 100,000 residents. From a population standpoint, Texas is growing faster than anywhere else, which means these cities, especially the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth areas, are about to seem much smaller and more crowded for residents who have lived there for a while. Overall, Texas gained about 490,000 people between July 2014 and July 2015.
To help illustrate just how quickly Texas is gaining residents, think about this: Texas’ top four metros in terms of population growth added more people than any other state, as a whole, in the country.
Outside of Texas, Atlanta, Phoenix, and New York round out the top five for metros that gained the most residents.
As far as metros that are growing at the fastest rate go, The Villages, Florida, which is a metro are just to the West of Orlando, saw a growth rate of 4.3 percent, making it the nation’s fastest growing for the third year in a row. It might not have had the first place metro, but Texas dominated the list of fastest growing metros, as well, as Midland, Odessa, Austin, College Station-Bryan, and Houston were all located within the top 20.
Overall, 285 of the 381 metro areas measured nationwide saw population gains between 2014 and 2015, including Los Angeles, Calif., which remained the most populous county in the country with 10.2 million residents. Cook, Ill., the nation’s second most populous country, saw a regression, as it lost residents, over 10,000, for the first time since 2007.
For the full list of the metros that saw the largest population gains, click the link below.
