Today I want to dig deeper into a question that’s gained traction of late at the council horseshoe and on social media: Is Dallas growing so much that we need a big housing bump?
The confusion is understandable. Weekly, we get headlines about “the Dallas area” being on one Top 10 list or another when it comes to population increases. Less often, we see a line about our city’s population remaining relatively flat the last five years or so.
Both of those statements are true. The Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro area is home to a tad more than 8 million residents.
When planners look at a city’s growth, they focus on historical trends. That’s the model followed by staff at the Regional Transportation Council of the North Central Texas Council of Governments, which predicts Dallas will grow by more than 330,000 individuals between now and 2045.
Think of the increase as adding the entire population of Plano — plus about 5,000 more folks — into Dallas over the next 21 years.
The growth would amount to more than 15,000 new residents per year. As noted at last week’s City Council briefing, the number of housing units currently being built in Dallas is about the same.
The city ranks third in the country among big cities for the largest home price gains in the last decade — a 175% increase. In this time of staggering house prices, rising rent, inflation and stagnant wages, home ownership is unattainable for many Dallas residents, whether they are the working poor or professionals with college degrees.
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