How soon will HOUSTON pass Chicago ?
The question isn’t whether we’ll be the nation’s third-largest city. It’s when.
Houston looks to be on its way to becoming the country’s third-largest city.
Growth in Chicago, which currently holds the title, slowed to a crawl in 2014, based on recent estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Meanwhile in Houston, the strong population growth for which it’s known continued to persist.
“It isn’t ‘possible,’ it’s ‘probable’ that Houston will grow to be the country’s third largest city,” said Dowell Myers, a demographer at University of Southern California.
If both cities maintain their average growth rates of the last four years, Houston would surpass Chicago as the country’s third most populous by 2030.
Houston’s population, which now stands at 2.23 million, increased by an average 1.59 percent over the last four years.
At the same time, Chi- cago’s population averaged just a 0.23 percent annual increase and now stands at 2.72 million. As a result, all signs point to Space City likely eclipsing the Windy City in the population rankings.
There’s nothing especially scientific about assuming both cities will continue growing at their current rate. Nonetheless, Myers said there’s good reason to expect Houston to surpass Chicago sometime relatively soon.
“It has the employment trajectory, and it has the land area,” Myers said. “The Sun Belt cities are attracting growth because they have the land area. And because of that, they’re destined to surpass the landlocked, older cities like Chicago.”
The growth discrepancy between the two cities was especially stark in 2014. Chicago added just 82 people, an infinitesimal increase of 0.003 percent. Houston, meanwhile, For more on this story, click here.