Let Me Sum Up

A strong Dallas mayor would make Mary Suhm irrelevant, which is a good thing. Plus: Nolan!

The fallout from the Mary Suhm gas-drilling briefing that took place last week was heartening, even if the event itself was less than.

For one, the paper of record finally agreed that Suhm could be criticized and the sky would not fall. In a straightforward, dead-on editorial, the Dallas Morning News said that the City Council was remiss for not taking seriously its oversight role. As the paper put it:

Call us naive, but we expected council members to ask tough questions about how the tract in northwest Dallas ended up in an agreement with Trinity East Energy without the council’s approval. With the exception of Angela Hunt (and to a lesser degree Scott Griggs and Sandy Greyson) nobody did.

Granted, it was naïve. What in the world gave the paper the thought that council members would dare stand up to Mother Hen? As we’ve all acknowledged, this deal is going to go through, largely because Suhm promised it would. They don’t want any more discussion (read: public culpability) of the parkland gas-drilling arrangement than is necessary.

But Jim Schutze on Friday nailed the real takeaway from this: It shows just how weak our mayor is. Not Mike Rawlings specifically — he’s aw-ite — but the mayor’s office.

Schutze (channeling Hunt) points out that the system is set up to blame no one when something like this happens. The city manager is just a public servant, not an elected official, so she can’t be to blame, right? The mayor doesn’t have any more authority than a council member. And the council members are beholden to their districts first, not responsible for the city at-large.

My friends make fun of me because, after only living in Atlanta for a year, they say I bring it up all the time to point out how worldly I’ve become. (“Well, in Atlanta, we have high-class pimento cheese on every menu. And we’ve been drinking whisky sours for years.”) But it’s true that the strong-mayor system there is a stark contrast to our governing structure.

Kasim Reed is a youngish, ambitious politician elected in 2010 to lead Atlanta. In just the year I was there, he completed a series of bold moves that infuriated his critics: reduced city pension to pay for police, pushed out the nationally revered head of the housing authority to install a crony, maneuvered for new airport contracts to be awarded to vendors, hired and fired staff with no explanation.

This is just a sampling. True, his strong-arming outraged many people, including a columnist at the paper where I worked. I published columns calling him a Chicago-style boss, someone who was consolidating power by running out his enemies and installing his cohorts in positions of authority across the city.

You know what? He was! You know what else? It was awesome!

There was one person to blame or get credit. More to the point, things got done, so long as pesky public votes didn’t stand in the way. We first heard more than a year ago that a new downtown Falcons stadium was in the works. There was predictable opposition (including from me, and my paper). But it was accepted it would eventually come to pass, because Reed was behind it. This month, the deal should be finalized.

I have to tell you, I loved living in a city with a mayor who had real power. It provided the media focus, the people someone to love or hate, and a politician who had to stand up and take the heat. If that someday happens here, and we can point to last week’s debacle as a seed crystal, then it was worth it.

Elsewhere

Nothing new in the Craig Watkins piece the DMN ran Sunday. If you’re looking for a takeaway, one person who accurately sums up what all his troubles mean for his reelection bid, you have to look to the very end, where a local political talking head suggests “most people would say that Watkins generally has done a good job and is interested in making sure that the innocent don’t get prosecuted” — but that he also has “made some missteps.” That’s true. I’ll explain why tomorrow.

Kevin Sherrington with a great column that wonders if Nolan Ryan’s time at the Texas Rangers may be coming to an end. This should make you very afraid.

Retweets

If you’re not following Greg Abbott on Twitter, you’re missing our modern Matthew Harrison Brady. (Oh, Google it.)

“@texastribune: UT/TT Poll: In potential 2014 GOP TX gov primary, @governorperry leads @gregabbott_tx, 49%-17%.trib.it/12mCktx”

— Emily Ramshaw (@eramshaw) March 4, 2013

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed has made enemies, mostly because he has the authority to actually get things done. Sounds glorious, right?

Twitter.com

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed has made enemies, mostly because he has the authority to actually get things done. Sounds glorious, right?

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population report

Booming Dallas suburb was the fastest-growing city in the U.S. in 2024

City of Dallas - City Hall/Facebook

Dallas' population has grown to nealry 1.33 million residents.

The Dallas suburb of Princeton grew faster than any other city in the United States in 2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The new population report said Princeton's population has more than doubled in the last five years. The city saw a dramatic growth rate of 30.6 percent from July 2023 to July 2024, now boasting a population of just over 37,000 residents. The suburb is located 42 miles northeast from downtown Dallas.

The report also revealed Dallas retained its No. 9 spot on the list of the 15 most populous cities in the U.S. Dallas gained more than 23,000 residents during the one-year period, bringing the city's population to 1,326,087 people in 2024.

Elsewhere across North Texas, Fort Worth surpassed 1 million residents and eclipsed Austin as the 11th largest city in the nation. Fort Worth had the fifth-highest numeric increase in population last year, 23,442 residents, to bring the city's total population to 1,008,106 residents.

Houston and San Antonio were the only Texas cities to have higher numerical growth rates than Fort Worth. Houston gained 43,217 residents – the second-highest increase nationwide – while San Antonio ranked No. 4 in growth with an additional 23,945 residents.

Austin has yet to surpass the 1 million population threshold and has a population of 993,588 residents, the report says. The city now ranks 13th on the list of most populous U.S. cities after ranking 11th in 2024.

Sandwiched between No. 11-Fort Worth and No. 13-Austin is San Jose, California, whose population of 997,368 puts it in the 12-largest spot.

Fastest growing U.S. cities
Six additional Texas cities made the list of fastest-growing U.S. cities, with several in the DFW Metroplex:

Fulshear, near Houston (No. 2) with 26.7 percent growth (54,629 total population)
Celina (No. 4) with 18.2 percent growth (51,661 total population)
Anna (No. 5) with 14.6 percent growth (31,986 total population)
Fate (No. 8) with 11.4 percent growth (27,467 total population)
Melissa (No. 11) with 10 percent growth (26,194 total population)
Hutto, near Austin (No. 13) with 9.4 percent growth (42,661 total population)

The Austin suburb of Georgetown's growth has continued to slow since 2023, and it no longer appears in the list of fastest-growing cities. However, it did surpass 100,000 residents in 2024.

San Angelo, a small city in West Texas, also surpassed the 100,000-population threshold.

Most populous U.S. cities in 2024
New York City maintained its stronghold as the biggest in America in 2024, boasting a population of nearly 8.5 million residents. Los Angeles and Chicago also retained second and third place, with respective populations of nearly 3.88 million and more than 2.7 million residents.

"Cities in the Northeast that had experienced population declines in 2023 are now experiencing significant population growth, on average," said Crystal Delbé, a statistician in the Census Bureau’s Population Division. "In fact, cities of all sizes, in all regions, showed faster growth and larger gains than in 2023, except for small cities in the South, whose average population growth rate remained the same."

The 15 populous U.S. cities as of July 1, 2024 were:

No. 1 – New York, New York (8.48 million)
No. 2 – Los Angeles, California (3.88 million)
No. 3 – Chicago, Illinois (2.72 million)
No. 4 – Houston, Texas (2.39 million)
No. 5 – Phoenix, Arizona (1.67 million)
No. 6 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1.57 million)
No. 7 – San Antonio, Texas (1.53 million)
No. 8 – San Diego, California (1.4 million)
No. 9 – Dallas, Texas (1.33 million)
No. 10 – Jacksonville, Florida (1 million)
No. 11 – Fort Worth, Texas (1 million)
No. 12 – San Jose, California (997,368)
No. 13 – Austin, Texas (993,588)
No. 14 – Charlotte, North Carolina (943,476)
No. 15 – Columbus, Ohio (933,263)

dallas dallas suburb dfw metroplex fastest growing cities population growth princeton us census bureau