In population. By the year 2025. Suck it, Chicago!
Hidden in the haze of the petrochemical plants and beyond the seemingly endless traffic jams, a Texas city has grown so large that it is poised to pass Chicago as the third biggest in the United States in the next decade.
Houston has been one of the fastest-growing U.S. cities for years, fueled by an energy industry that provided the backbone of the economy, low taxes and prospects of employment that have attracted job seekers.
But Houston also embodies the new, urban Texas, where political views have been drifting to the left, diversity is being embraced and newer residents are just as likely to drive a hybrid as a pickup truck.
Houston’s move is also indicative of demographic shifts unfolding in the United States that will increase the population and political clout of the Lone Star State over the next several decades.
Within eight to 10 years, Houston is forecast by demographers in the two states to pass Chicago, which has seen its population decline for years, as the third-largest city.
Houston is projected to have population of 2.54 million to 2.7 million by 2025 while Chicago will be at 2.5 million, according to official data from both states provided for their health departments. New York and Los Angeles are safe at one and two respectively.
Houston has long been associated with the risk takers in the oil industry and more recently as one of the better cities to find a job.
“Texas has a long tradition, and Houston has it in spades, that we are not so much interested in where you are from. We want to know what you can do,” Houston Mayor Annise Parker said in an interview with Reuters.
Chicago officials were not immediately available for comment.
And indeed, what could they say? Jokes aside, I confess to being a little wary of this projection when I first looked at it, but given that the city’s population has grown almost as much in the 2010-2014 period as it did between 2000 and 2010, I can see how we might get there. Our growth hasn’t always been even – far from it – and it’s demonstrably less in bad economic times (like the oil bust days in the 80s), so this is hardly a guarantee. But while the eventual date might not be set, the trend seems clear. Yay for us!
A lot of the story has the annoying tone of someone who’s never set foot in the state, much less Houston itself, but we’re all used to that by now. It also contains a cautionary note:
On social issues, residents in one of the most racially diverse U.S. cities are seen as “tolerant traditionalists” who espouse conservative values and open minds when it comes to social issues, according to a poll from the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Houston’s Rice University.
Residents generally have a positive view of immigrants, favor same-sex marriage and are more progressive than the state’s socially conservative Republican leadership, it said.
Pending the outcome of the HERO referendum, of course. Remember all that positive press Houston got in 2009, not just nationally but globally, when Annise Parker was elected? Sure, a lot of it was based on the same blissfully provincial ignorance about Houston – who could have possibly thought that an OIL TOWN in a backwards hellhole like Texas could elect a GAY MAYOR?!? – but for all that it was positive, and made some people reassess their view of our fair city. What kind of a reaction do you think we’ll get it we repeal an equal rights ordinance? I for one would rather not find out. The Press and Texas Leftist have more.
Reuters writer seems to be from Austin, but I would wager non native Texan.
I would expect a businesslike organization to 1) expect him to mention his sources, and 2) not be such a subjective asshole in tone.
If you guys will remember, when Annise got elected, she specifically did NOT promote herself as a “gay” candidate, rather, as a number cruncher who would be a good manager for the city. It wasn’t until her last term started that she started pushing the gay agenda. What her election told the world was what we tell the world, “we don’t care who you are, or where you come from, as long as you can do the job.” She got elected based on those parameters. I doubt she would have gotten elected if she had simply run on a platform of, “hey, look at me, I’m gay, vote for me.”