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Is there no larger city in Texas?

8K views 95 replies 30 participants last post by  txRNGr 
#1 · (Edited)
This is something that has caught my attention in the past few years. This is how I see it. Of course this is about Houston and Dallas?Ft Worth. Some people judge larger city status by city poplation, metro population, importance, and urban cores. Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth somewhat balances out those characteristics to make them Texas' two largest cities.

As I mentioned before, some people might judge larger city status by metro population and Dallas/Fort Worth has about 600,000 people more than Houston within its metro with DFW being slightly larger than the Houston metro by area.

Some people might say that Houston is the largest because of city population, but most people find that irrelevant because of annexing and larger city limits, but then again Houston has a city population of about 2.1 million and Dallas with about 1.2 million with it being about 200 square miles smaller than Houston. This is where confusion comes in because eventhough the size of Houston's city limits may be larger, we can take the city of Fort Worth and Dallas by area and combine them and the area would be larger than Houston but still a smaller population.

If we look at urban cores, Houston has a slight lead as far as population within a 5 mile radius from the center city, but we really cannot look at this because there are greater centers of population in the city of Houston because it has become so decentralized and I am assuming the same might be true for Dallas.

Anybody on the same page as I am, that neither of these two cities can really claim the largest city in Texas or do you feel different about the situation? Please share your thoughts.
 
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#3 ·
Let's say Fort Worth never existed...thus Dallas would be in the same metro situation as Houston, and it would have only 3.5 or so million people. That should make it clear which city in Texas is legitimately the largest for all you ignorant people and the biggest dumbass in the world: TEXASBOY! :crazy:

Btw, why are you so embarassed about living in Fort Lauderdale that you had to put "metro miami" in your profile? That's just lame.
 
#5 ·
My take is that regarding Dallas and Houston they are about what and what, roughly equivalent, more or less the same, pretty much equal, tit for tat, in the same ballpark, peas in a pod, two-two-two mints in one, and more importantly, the twin economic dynamos helping to make Texas, well, Texas!

So, it doesn't matter a bit which is bigger as long as they keep on pulling this old wagon forward.
 
#7 ·
dallas and houston are like two sisters that are only a year or 2 apart. both look alike have the same features, but there is always one sister that has a different personality. i guess you just have to pick which sister has which personality. oh yeah san-antonio is the baby boy, and austin is the stepchild. j/k
 
#8 · (Edited)
Dallas and Houston may have similar personalities but Houston just feels bigger. This is partly due to the many urban clusters that Houston has such as downtown, TMC, uptown/galleria, greenway plaza, westchase, and greenspoint. Houston has 2 major skylines, downtown and uptown. In Dallas, you have to drive 30 miles west to Fort Worth to see the other skyline. Not saying that one is more important than the other but Dallas and Fort Worth have to work together as a team to match Houston. But yes both Dallas and Houston play a huge role in shaping texas's economy.
 
#9 ·
Look, I'm not trying to start any flamewars but if i hear one more person say that Dallas's metro is bigger than Houston's metro, i'm gonna flip. The Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex is larger but not Dallas metro. Like fw skyline said, if FW didn't exist, just the Dallas metro alone would not be able to hold up in population against Houston metro. Let's give Fort Worth some credit and get it right.
 
#10 ·
louisianacharm said:
^probably for the same reason you live in metro dallas.
Aren't you just the funniest person ever! I hope you feel better about yourself now, otherwise you wasted a perfectly good post.

greystone08 said:
In Dallas, you have to drive 30 miles west to Fort Worth to see the other skyline. Not saying that one is more important than the other but Dallas and Fort Worth have to work together as a team to match Houston.
Saying Fort Worth is Dallas' "other" skyline is like saying Baltimore is Washington's other skyline. I don't think anyone in Baltimore would be too pleased with that, and I sure as hell am not pleased. Once Dallas (and the rest of you, for that matter) starts respecting Fort Worth, Fort Worthians will be more keen on the idea of working with Dallas.

Thanks for the kind words ComingToHouston, but this forum seems to be based on apathy and ignorance, so I'm afraid it's no use.
 
#11 ·
i don't see how anyone could discredit Fort Worth from being its own city and metro. Fort Worth has a population even larger than Denver, CO. Colorado's largest city and FW also has a metro area considerably larger even without the help of Dallas.
 
#12 ·
ComingtoHouston said:
Look, I'm not trying to start any flamewars but if i hear one more person say that Dallas's metro is bigger than Houston's metro, i'm gonna flip. The Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex is larger but not Dallas metro. Like fw skyline said, if FW didn't exist, just the Dallas metro alone would not be able to hold up in population against Houston metro. Let's give Fort Worth some credit and get it right.

well, if houston didnt annex half of south texas, then it probably would be about the same. it would be convenient for the people of houston to take away fort worth to make them the largest metro in texas. look, i like both cities, but there is no way i, or anyone else should accept the fact that houston is the largest metro in texas. maybe the city, but not metro.
 
#15 ·
Houston itself always felt like a bigger city than Dallas to me.

Most likely as has been stated, Dallas shares the DFW metro area with another large city. Houston itself is the center of its metro.
 
#16 ·
sleepy said:
Most likely as has been stated, Dallas shares the DFW metro area with another large city. Houston itself is the center of its metro.
Thats the main difference between the two. Dallas has two centers so is more spread out, while Houston only has one. Dallas is larger in most ways, discounting that, but not by too much.

It will be interesting to see where things are in a decade or two though, if Dallas keeps and expands its population lead over Houston.
 
#17 · (Edited)
louisianacharm said:
well, if houston didnt annex half of south texas, then it probably would be about the same. it would be convenient for the people of houston to take away fort worth to make them the largest metro in texas. look, i like both cities, but there is no way i, or anyone else should accept the fact that houston is the largest metro in texas. maybe the city, but not metro.
I am so sick of hearing people using the annexation thing as a crutch as to why Houston shouldn't be naturally one of the largest cities in the US and in Texas. Houston is not the only major city that grew by annexation. In Texas, there is a lot of land and undeveloped land that would warrant this type of growth. And anyway, the urban core stats is what matters most.

I'm not a fan of annexation either, but that still doesn't change the fact that Houston has just as much, if not more in its city limits than Dallas/Fort Worth put together when it comes to ammentities as well as population. All of the urban clusters that greystone stated in Houston all together make it feel like the biggest city in Texas.

And i'm not sure about Fort Worth's Metro population statistics alone because its always being paired with Dallas. But Shamika is right about the city of Fort Worth population being larger than Denver. But as for the metro population, if Dallas alone is somewhere around 3.5 and the whole DFW area is over 6 million, Fort Worth has to be at least 2.5 million by itself which is the same size as Denver's 2.5 million metro population.
 
#18 ·
unusualfire said:
Denver is much bigger than FT Worth without Dallas. Metrowise.
I'm sure they were talking about city limits, but that's an apples to oranges comparison and I don't know why it was brought up...

sogod said:
Thats the main difference between the two. Dallas has two centers so is more spread out, while Houston only has one.
Sleepy said it correctly, Dallas shares the metroplex. If anything has two centers, it's the metroplex, not "Dallas".

ComingtoHouston said:
But as for the metro population, if Dallas alone is somewhere around 3.5 and the whole DFW area is over 6 million, Fort Worth has to be at least 2.5 million by itself
I think Fort Worth would be closer to 2.1 though, so if 6 million is correct, Dallas is 3.9 (still smaller than Houston's what, 5 million?)
 
#19 · (Edited)
sogod said:
It will be interesting to see where things are in a decade or two though, if Dallas keeps and expands its population lead over Houston.
Now didn't i say that the next time i hear the phrase "Dallas is larger than Houston" that i was gonna flip out?
Well you did it. Here i go...
:mad: :mad2: :mad2: :gunz: :gunz: :rant: :rant:

Ok i'm calm now. For the last time people Dallas/FORT WORTH is larger than Houston, not just DALLAS. It's a tag team match when it comes to Dallas vs. Houston.
 
#21 ·
fwskyline said:
I'm sure they were talking about city limits, but that's an apples to oranges comparison and I don't know why it was brought up...

i only brought it up to say that Fort Worth is deserving of a title as a city within itself and its own metro area. It's not the far suburb of Dallas that most people try to put it as.
 
#22 ·
ComingtoHouston said:
I'm not a fan of annexation either, but that still doesn't change the fact that Houston has just as much if not more in its city limits than Dallas/Fort Worth put together when it comes to ammentities as well as population.
.
im not from dallas or houston, and could care less if neither were bigger, but i doubt houston has more amenities within its city than all of dfw, let alone just dallas. houston just gives me that bluecollar town type feel, while dallas gives me that typical everythings bigger in texas type feel
 
#23 ·
louisianacharm said:
im not from dallas or houston, and could care less if neither were bigger, but i doubt houston has more amenities within its city than all of dfw, let alone just dallas. houston just gives me that bluecollar town type feel, while dallas gives me that typical everythings bigger in texas type feel
care to elaborate? Aside from amentities i can tell you a few things( that might not seem that important to you) about how Houston feels like the bigger city.

1. Bigger and taller skyscrapers
2. More lanes/wider freeways
3. Grander dowtown skyline
4. Main Street action downtown
5. Multiple urban clusters (as greytone said). Just driving through the Texas Medical Center feels like a mini-downtown, same with uptown/Galleria area.
6. Westheimer/Richmond Strips- with multiple club activity and action

Louisianacharm, I respect your opinion and these reasons might not seem like the best reasons but these are the things that impress me when i visit. I love both cities and i'm not trying to tear anyone of them down, but Houston is the largest city in Texas but the second largest metro area after Dallas/Fort Worth. I don't think you've really seen much of Dallas or Houston off driving off the freeway though.
 
#25 ·
ComingtoHouston said:
1. Bigger and taller skyscrapers
2. More lanes/wider freeways
3. Grander dowtown skyline
4. Main Street action downtown
5. Multiple urban clusters (as greytone said). Just driving through the Texas Medical Center feels like a mini-downtown, same with uptown/Galleria area.
6. Westheimer/Richmond Strips- with multiple club activity and action
1. yes, but thats not everyones cup of tea
2. i dont know if thats actually a good thing, but to dallas' defense they are now burying freeways and building parks
3. opinion
4. dallas also has downtown action, neither city is just jumping with nightlife downtown, and dallas has better shopping downtown.
5. skyscrapers does not equal urban clusters. yes, houston has more areas with skyscrapers, but i would take uptown dallas over uptown and midtown houston combined.
6.westheimer is nice, but thats one of those to each his own kinda things.

to come to dallas' defense because they won't and usually dont post here to do it themselves, and there are waayyyy more houston posters, both cities are nice, but dallas has more projects going on within the city, and lets not talk metro. dallas usually ranks above houston in many categories that are positive for the metro, and they have every sports team in the metro. yes, you may have to drive to see them, but it is no longer than the commute in houston where the traffic is much much worse.
 
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