Houston now No. 5 in population, overtakes Philadelphia
 

Whole lot of people.

Philly will always be the bigger city ;)

Damb. I wonder who has worse rush hours.

According to the Census estimates xls file I'm staring at right now... Houston is at 6.09 million and Philly is at 5.99 million. Not sure where Bizjournals is getting those slightly enhanced figures.

While I dont doubt that this probably has occurred, I dislike non-governmental entities making these kinds of pronouncements--they arent official.

It depends on the definition of metropolitan area, of course.

If the numbers are correct, one could argue Houston is larger, but one could still argue Philly is larger using the broader Census-derived boundaries.

And, if we are to use the broader definition, these two cities are either 6th or 7th, not 5th. DC and SF would be larger.

I think those are 2011 figures. They probably just added another year to make 2012. I noticed that the article referred to April 1st so I figure that they mean this year. 274,162 in a year is really high but half of it is ~137,000 which is about right for the annual growth for the metro.

Dallas and Atlanta will follow soon. :-)

Dallas already is bigger:shrug:

So Houston is growing at 46% this decade? UNREAL!

I have a habit of noticing license plates when I am on the road. Force of habit from the 13 cross country trips I have made driving alone.

It is not uncommon to pull up to a stop light now and see several out of state plates on the road. Here's what I spotted today on my way to work;

Colombia! Never seen one of those before
Mexico
Louisiana
New Mexico
California (Cali cars are all over the place these days)
Vermont (love those green plates)
New Jersey
Michigan
Illinois
Florida
Alberta (big F350 truck)

Sounds about right :haha:

I see a ton of Texas plates here in Alberta, more than any other state by far.

Houston has had amazing growth, probably the only metro outgrowing Toronto right now, and that is a pretty impressive feat.

that didn't take long...

Nope. :)

Are these numbers for MSA or CSA?

Pretty soon, Houston will simply join up with San Antonio and Austin, creating the world's largest sprawl-opolis! :banana:

Seriously though, I'm glad that Houston's continuing to grow, but I really wish that so much of that growth wasn't concentrated in far-flung suburbs and exurbs like Katy, the Woodlands, Spring, Kingwood, and now Pearland. :(

Aaron (Glowrock)

msa.

You mean dc and sj right? The larger city gets the top bill. That's the convention if you want to include it.

But in any case way to go houston!

:tup: