This Boomtown has been putting up some incredible numbers. But growing also comes with growing pains.
DALLAS — We have this whole series of reports this year called Boomtown, which will focus on the explosive growth we are experiencing here in North Texas.
So, let’s start by talking about these cities: San Marcos, Katy, Pecos, Brownsville, Fredericksburg, New Braunfels, Texarkana, Brenham, and Galveston.
I know. Obviously, none of those are in North Texas, but those cities help to illustrate what has been happening here.
Huge population growth
From 2020 to 2021 the population in the region went up by 119,796 people. If you look at population figures from the Texas Demographic Center, that increase in the North Texas region is like the populations of San Marcos, Katy, and Pecos all moving here that year.
A year later, we saw an increase here of 202,294. That’s roughly the equivalent of Brownsville and Fredericksburg also packing up and relocating here. Then, from 2022 to 2023, we grew by another 149,041 people. That’s like New Braunfels and Texarkana moving in.
And then from mid-2023 to the beginning of last year—so about half a year—we added 74,554 additional people in North Texas. That’s like plopping Brenham and Galveston into North Texas, too.
Job growth
To accommodate everyone, we have been developing and sprawling. If you play this Google Earth timelapse of North Texas, you can zoom down and see how fields have turned into cityscapes all around D-FW in recent decades.
Why do so many people keep coming here? It’s not the allure of the beautiful ocean or the majesty of mountains. It’s the opportunities!
Look at the last ten years of job growth here. Even with that outlier negative COVID year, the greater Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro has added 956,413 jobs in a decade. That’s an average of 95,641 additional people employed here each year. Here’s the breakdown:
- Nov 2014-Nov 2015: +87,406
- Nov 2015-Nov 2016: +128,355
- Nov 2016-Nov 2017: +77,212
- Nov 2017-Nov 2018: +76,769
- Nov 2018-Nov 2019: +125,409
- Nov 2019-Nov 2020: -77,611
- Nov 2020-Nov 2021: +214,665
- Nov 2021-Nov 2022: +134,285
- Nov 2022-Nov 2023: +108,866
- Nov 2023-Nov 2024: +81,057
Decade total: +956,413
Yearly: +95,641
Businesses and headquarters have been growing in North Texas, too
So, it’s not just people moving here. Businesses have been coming and bringing jobs and headquarters here as well.
As a state, Texas has been recognized by Site Selection magazine in recent years for what they say is the country’s best business climate. They even called Texas the ‘headquarters of headquarters’.
But this year, Texas slipped from first place to being tied as the fourth-best state for doing business. And yet the Dallas metro was still selected by the people who advise CEOs on relocations as the best place for a headquarters.
It seems the executives are listening to that advice. According to Y Texas, the greater DFW metro is now the home base for 48 of the 1000 biggest American companies (Fortune 1,000 companies).
That’s 21 in Dallas, 12 in Irving, 3 in Fort Worth, 3 in Plano, 2 in McKinney, and one each in Richardson, Arlington, Southlake, Westlake, Denton, Willow Park, and Grapevine.
Companies have come from all over. The Dallas Chamber put out this brag graphic last year to illustrate that. But as we get into the Boomtown series, we are confirming that when you grow fast, you have growing pains. You know this if you have been shopping for a home along with all those other people who have moved here.
The difficulties of finding affordable housing
In this hot, in-demand market, prices have gone up. But in many cases, salaries haven’t kept up.
Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies figures your household needs to be bringing in $116,238 per year here to afford the median-priced home ($377,700).
If you select the map view in this data from the Federal Reserve of St. Louis and zoom down to North Texas, you can see that Dallas and Tarrant fall well below that household earnings target. Denton gets close and places like Collin and Rockwall exceed the necessary household income.
But then zoom down on this map from the National Association of Realtors and you will see that in those North Texas counties with higher incomes, the median home price is also much more expensive than the region overall.
More traffic is coming…
Even when you find a home—and one of those many jobs that have been created here— are they close together? Another growing pain is the growing commute time.
Check out the congestion blobs depicted in this report by the North Central Texas Council of Governments. The darker the red, the more severe the traffic. It looks like one of those inkblot tests.
What do you see in the shape of the current congestion map? I see a happy face because it looks good compared to the next 20 years.
As more people come here, you can use the slider to see how bad it gets if we don’t make improvements. There is a lot more congestion sprawl and dark red even if you look at the blob that depicts what happens if we do make improvements.
If you have specific Boomtown story suggestions, you can send them to us at boomtown@wfaa.com.
