By Tom
Geoghegan BBC News,
Washington
Half of the 10 fastest-growing
cities in the US are in Texas, according to new figures.
Why?
Every way you look at it, there are a lot of people
moving to Texas.
Five of the 10 fastest-growing cities in the country
between 2011 and 2012 were in Texas, according to
new figures from the US Census Bureau. New York is way
out in front in terms of added population, but Houston is
second with San Antonio and Austin fourth and fifth.
In terms of percentage growth, it's even more Texas,
Texas, Texas. Among the five cities that grew most, as a
proportion of their size, between 2011 and 2012, three are
Texan. San Marcos is out in front with the highest rate of
growth among all US cities and towns - 4.9%.
Some of this Texan population boom is due to a natural
increase - more births than deaths - but the numbers moving
into the state from elsewhere in the US and from abroad far
outstrip every other American state. Why?
1. Jobs
"I don't think people go for the weather or topography,"
says Joel Kotkin, professor of urban development at Chapman
University in Orange, California. "The main reason people go
is for employment. It's pretty simple.
Continue reading the main story
Most new arrivals 2011-12
- Texas: 210,590
- N Carolina: 60,106
- Virginia: 40,844
"The unconventional oil and gas
boom has helped turn Texas into an economic juggernaut,
particularly world energy capital Houston, but growth has
also been strong in tech, manufacturing and business
services."
Critics have questioned whether the
"Texas miracle" is a myth, based on cheap labour and
poor regulation.
But Kotkin says Texas has plenty of high-wage,
blue-collar jobs and jobs for university graduates, although
people looking for very high-wage jobs would probably head
to Seattle, San Francisco and New York.
Four of the top 10 metropolitan areas for job growth in
2013
are in Texas, according to Kotkin's website, New
Geography.
Texas also has a huge military presence, which grew as
defence spending increased in the decade after 9/11. Many
retired Texans first came to the state as service personnel.
2. It's cheaper
Once employed, it's hugely important that your pay cheque
goes as far as possible, says Kotkin.
Continue reading the main story
Fastest growing cities in US (%)
- 1: San Marcos, Texas (4.91)
- 2: South Jordan, Utah (4.87)
- 3: Midland, Texas (4.87)
- 4: Cedar Park, Texas 4.67)
- 5: Clarktown, Tenn (4.43)
- 6: Alpharetta, Georgia (4.37)
- 7: Georgetown, Texas (4.21)
- 8: Irvine, California (4,21)
- 9: Buckeye, Arizona (4.14)
- 10: Conroe, Texas (4.01)
US Census Bureau, 2011-12
"New York, LA and the [San
Francisco] Bay Area are too expensive for most people to
live, but Houston has the highest 'effective' pay cheque in
the country."
Kotkin came to this conclusion after looking at the
average incomes in the country's 51 largest metro areas, and
adjusting them for the cost of living.
His results put three Texan areas in the top 10.
Houston is top because of the region's relatively low
cost of living, including consumer prices, utilities and
transport costs and, most importantly, housing prices, he
says.
"The ratio of the median home price to median annual
household income in Houston is only 2.9. In San Francisco,
it's 6.7.
"In New York, San Francisco and LA, if you're blue-collar
you will be renting forever and struggling to make ends
meet. But people in Texas have a better shot at getting some
of the things associated with middle-class life."
Continue reading the main story
Texans who've left their mark on the world
- Roy Orbison (pictured, first)
was born in the small town of Vernon, in 1936,
months before fellow rock 'n' roll great
Buddy Holly, from nearby Lubbock
- Joan Crawford(second), born
Lucille Fay LeSueur to a poor San Antonio family,
was famous for accepting an Oscar while ill in bed
- As JR Ewing, Fort Worth's Larry Hagman
became the face of long-running soap Dallas and just
about the most famous man in Texas
- Also robbers Bonnie and Clyde,
singer Janis Joplin, country star
Willie Nelson, cyclist
Lance Armstrong, actress Jayne
Mansfield(third)
- Texas has produced two presidents:
Lyndon Johnson and Dwight
Eisenhower. Connecticut-born George
W Bush (fourth) grew up there
3. Homes
Land is cheaper than elsewhere and
the process of land acquisition very efficient, says Dr Ali
Anari, research economist at the Real Estate Center at Texas
A&M University.
"From the time of getting a building permit right through
to the construction of homes, Texas is much quicker than
other states.
"There is an abundant supply of land and fewer
regulations and more friendly government, generally a much
better business attitude here than other states."
This flexibility, plus strict lending rules, helped to
shield the state from the recent housing market crash.
4. Low tax
Continue reading the main story
'I moved because I had to'
Jeff Paradise, 32, works for an insurance company and
relocated to Dallas in 2011, but he often returns to see
his partner, Ryan (above left), in his native New York.
"I've been to quite a lot of cities in the US and
Dallas is probably my least favourite. The one reason
I'm here is for a financial purpose. I have a really
good job but I work about 70-80 hours a week so if I had
more free time, I would do more. It's a new American
city, all sprawled out, because it came of age in the
60s and 70s when it was all about cars and highways. But
it's definitely changed the last 5-10 years and they are
trying to improve the public transport. I get the train
and it's clean, on time and cheaper than New York."
Texas is one of only seven states
where residents pay no personal state income tax, says Kay
Bell, contributing tax editor at Bankrate and Texan native.
The state has a disproportionate take from property
taxes, which has become a big complaint among homeowners,
she adds. But overall, only five states had a lower
individual tax burden than Texas, according to Tax
Foundation research.
There are also tax incentives for businesses and this
week legislators cut more than $1bn off proposed business
taxes.
5. Pick your own big city
Texas has six of the country's 20 biggest cities, says
Erica Grieder, author of Big, Hot, Cheap and Right: What
America Can Learn from the Strange Genius of Texas.
Contrast this to, for example, Illinois, where if you
want to live in a big city you can live in Chicago or you
have to move out of state, she says.
But if you're in Texas you can be in Houston, San
Antonio, Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth, or El Paso.
6. Austin in particular
Continue reading the main story
Why I live in Austin
"Houston is a city, San Antonio is a city but Austin
doesn't feel like that to me," says Texan-born folk
singer James McMurty.
"I like it because it's equidistant to each coast so
I can get in my van and drive to the west coast and
drive around there for three weeks and then come home
and do the same on the east coast and still have a life.
"It's far enough south that it doesn't get too cold
and you don't get many twisters. And it's a blue dot
[Democrat] in a red sea."
Restaurant manager Christopher
Hislop, 33, moved in 2007 from Los Angeles to Austin, where
he met his wife and they now have a nine-month-old boy.
"I came to Austin for a wedding and thought it was a
really cool city and the people were nice - it was
everything that LA wasn't but still had that hip vibe
without pretension. The nightlife is great and there's an
emphasis on getting out and about - they maintain trailways
and nature.
"It's not Texas at all and that's what I liked about it.
I don't know Texas very well, I grew up in Chicago, but
Austin is not Texas because you think of 10-gallon hats and
guys on horseback. It's a cliché but Austin isn't like that,
it's hip and in the now. The rest of Texas is very
conservative."
People like to perpetuate a myth that Austin is still the
Austin it once was, says Joshua Long, author of Weird City:
Sense of Place and Creative Resistance in Austin, Texas. So
as it's become a big city, a movement has developed to "keep
it cool, keep it weird and keep it environmentally
friendly".
7. Family-friendly
Because of its good-value housing, Texas has been
particularly popular with families, and some of its cities
now have an above-average number of children. San Antonio is
home to
the largest community of gay parents.
In Texas, you can have a reasonable mortgage and pretty
good schools, says Grieder. And restaurants are invariably
family-friendly.
"You hear about the high drop-out rate but Texas
education scores pretty well at national tests for 4th and
8th graders in math, reading and science. The aggregate is
about average.
"The perception is that Texas has poor schools but it's
not correct. Across the country in general, we don't have
schools as good as we would like them to be."
In eighth-grade maths, for instance,
Texas scored higher than the national average and
outscored the three other big states of California, New York
and Florida. On Sunday, an education budget was approved
that restored cuts made in 2011.
8. Fewer rules
Continue reading the main story
And why some might not move to Texas
- The weather - summer is hot. Very hot
- Congestion problems growing in big cities
- Not well known for fun nightlife, outside Austin
- If you hate American football (above, University
of Texas Longhorns), you might be outnumbered
"Texas is liberal in the classic
sense, it's laissez-faire, so there's a lack of
regulations," says Grieder, and this can apply to the
obvious (business regulations) or the less obvious (city
rules).
"The classic social contract is - we're not going to do a
ton to help you but we're not going to get in your way.
That's not 100% true of the state but there's that strand in
the state."
Mortgage lending is an obvious exception. But there has
been strong opposition to banning texting while driving and
a proposed tax on soda.
And Governor Rick Perry is poised to sign off the
strongest email privacy laws in the US, which would require
state law enforcement agencies to get a warrant before
accessing emails.
9. Texans are normal people
The state likes to proclaim itself as an unpretentious,
down-to-earth place where people are easy to get along with.
As John Steinbeck wrote: "Texas has a tight cohesiveness
perhaps stronger than any other section of America."
And for people with conservative values, it could be a
natural home, although demographic shifts have prompted
speculation it will be a Democratic state in the future.
People dream about moving to California, but they don't
dream about moving to Texas, says Grieder, yet many of those
reluctant to move there end up liking it.
She adds: "[They] realize that Texans aren't all Bible
thumping, gun-toting people. The job is the trigger to come
but you find it's pretty nice to live here."
10. And they're not going anywhere
All this doesn't just bring in new arrivals - native
Texans aren't leaving the state either. It is the
"stickiest" state in the country, according to
the latest figures from the Pew Research Center, which
suggest that more than three-quarters of adults born in
Texas still live there. Alaska is the least sticky. |
