San Antonio moves past Dallas

They’re #2! Not that it really matters.

[San Antonio’s] 1.3 million residents put it at the No. 2 spot for Texas’ largest cities and had the office of Mayor Julián Castro declaring San Antonio’s “rising prominence as one of America’s fastest-growing big cities.”

San Antonio followed Houston, the state’s largest city with 2 million residents, and came in before Dallas, with 1.1 million.

At best, the ranking may be useful at a pep rally.

At worst, it can mislead.

“People see that, and they think we should have a football team,” said County Judge Nelson Wolff. “It’s nice bragging rights, but as far as a meaningful economic engine, compared to Dallas, we’re insignificant.”

For those looking at population figures more holistically, the Metropolitan Statistical Area figures are most important.

In that lineup, San Antonio comes in distant third after Dallas and Houston.

The latest figures from the Census Bureau’s 2005-2009 American Community Survey, which are estimates, put the Dallas-Fort Worth area, which encompasses 12 counties, at 6.14 million people; and the Houston area, which encompasses 10 counties, at 5.59 million.
San Antonio’s MSA, which takes in an eight-county area, comes in at No. 3 with a total population of 1.97 million.

I’m not sure why they’re using such old data when the 2010 numbers are right there. By my count, the San Antonio MSA adds up as follows:

County Population ========================= Atascosa 44,911 Bandera 20,485 Bexar 1,714,773 Comal 108,472 Guadalupe 131,533 Kendall 33,410 Medina 46,006 Wilson 42,918 Total 2,142,508 Non-Bexar 427,735

To put that in some perspective, the non-Bexar total is less than Montgomery (455,746) and Fort Bend (585,375) by themselves; Collin (782,314) and Denton (662,614) are even bigger. Heck, Parker County (116,927) is larger than everything outside of Bexar except Guadalupe. Until Austin and its environs is considered part of San Antonio’s MSA, it’s not catching up to Houston or D/FW any time soon.

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