City News Roundup

Mayor Mike's re-election bid tops this week's summary of Dallas city news

Local politics will get exciting in spring 2015, but the candidate action has already begun. A New York foundation has added Dallas to its fancy list, and Dallas' dippiest politicians are obsessed with street names.

Here are some of the highlights of news around Dallas this week:

Mayor Mike runs
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings has announced that he'll run for re-election next May; he was first elected mayor in 2011. The only other candidates that have emerged so far are attorney Marcos Ronquillo and frequent city council speaker Richard Sheridan.

Another prominent race will be the city council seat for District 9, currently occupied by Sheffie Kadane. It's a hot zone that includes Lakewood, Forest Hills, Little Forest Hills, Casa Linda, Casa View and Ferguson Road.

Official filing doesn't begin until January 28, but candidates have already surfaced, including former Dallas Park and Recreation board member Darren Boruff, insurance agency owner Mark Clayton, and Dallas Arboretum board member Christopher Jackson.

Resilient are we
Dallas received an odd honor from the New York-based Rockefeller Foundation, which added us to its list of "100 Resilient Cities," along with other resilient towns such as Tulsa, Paris, London and Barcelona. According to a release, resilient cities get perks that include networking, information technology tools and funds to hire a chief resilience officer. In Dallas' case, that appointment goes to former interim city manager Theresa O'Donnell.

Eric Williams: guilty
In a breathtakingly short three days, former Kaufman County justice of the peace Eric Williams was convicted by a jury on December 4 of capital murder for the 2013 murder of Cynthia McLelland. She's the wife of former Kaufman County district attorney Mike McLelland, who was murdered after pursuing Williams for the theft of three computer monitors.

Jurors saw evidence from a storage locker secretly rented by a friend of Williams' that contained the suspected getaway vehicle and more than 30 guns. Williams is also indicted for the murders of Mike McLelland and assistant district attorney Mark Hasse. Williams faces a potential death sentence; the sentencing phase begins December 8.

Street name silliness
Of all the pointless frittering, at the top of the list is the recent fixation among dippy Dallas politicians to change street names. Dwaine Caraway lost his campaign last summer to re-name Lancaster Boulevard after Nelson Mandela. The latest fiddling comes from Dallas City Council member Carolyn Davis, who has proposed two street name changes. She wants a section of Grand Avenue to be named Al Lipscomb Way, for former councilmember and convicted heroin dealer Al Lipscomb, and a section of Hatcher Street to be named for former councilmember Elsie Faye Heggins.

Despite protests from people who live or work on those streets and whose lives will be negatively affected by a name change, the Planning Commission's Subdivision Review Committee approved her request, with only commission member Paul Ridley courageously voting against it. It will go before the Planning Commission on January 8.

Mike Rawlings will run for re-election in May.

Photo courtesy of Mike Rawlings for Mayor

Mike Rawlings will run for re-election in May.

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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

City News Roundup

Mayor Mike's re-election bid tops this week's summary of Dallas city news

Mike Rawlings will run for re-election in May.

population report

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

Dark comedy Friendship covers male bonding with copious cringing

Dallas farm-to-table champion Profound Farms closes produce operation

Greyhound bus finds new location to replace downtown Dallas terminal