The May 23 Census Bureau report of Austin’s ascent to No. 11 on the list of most populous American cities appeared as I was heading to Annapolis, Md., for my nephew’s graduation from the Naval Academy and, a day later, to Washington, D.C., for a short visit. Austin passed Washington on the list of the nation’s most populous cities years ago, yet Washington, where I lived from 1988 to 1991, feels much bigger — much more like a city.
The same is true of San Francisco, which Austin passed on the most populous list in 2011. Like Washington, D.C., San Francisco has features we associate with major cities: great museums, convenient public transportation, multiple vibrant and walkable neighborhoods, professional sports teams. The same can be said to varying degrees of Seattle, Portland, Ore., Denver and Boston, all of which have fewer people than Austin (shown below in a photo taken by the American-Statesman’s Laura Skelding in October).
The difference is San Francisco et al. are part of metropolitan areas that are larger — in some cases, significantly larger — than the Austin metropolitan area that includes Travis, Williamson, Bastrop, Caldwell and Hays counties. This fact gets lost in reports about Austin’s population.
Austin ranks 11th in population, with 842,592 residents. The Austin-Round Rock metropolitan area, on the other hand, ranks 35th, with 1.7 million people, according to 2010 Census Bureau figures. The Austin-Round Rock area has doubled in population since 1990 but it remains far behind the D.C. area, for example, which ranks seventh with 5.6 million people, according to 2010 figures, or the San Francisco area, which ranks 11th with 4.3 million people.
I have lived in Austin for 22 years and first visited our beautiful city in 1978, when its population was about 332,000. Only once in Austin’s history — 1990 — did the city lose population, and then just barely. Austin has been growing steadily since. It will continue to grow. And growth will continue to bring challenges such as expensive housing and traffic congestion. But despite its growth and evolution, Austin remains largely suburban in character. I say that without judgment. It is what it is. It’s one reason why I love Austin. And it’s one reason why I don’t think of Austin as a city in the way I think of D.C. or San Francisco as cities.
One other thing to note about the latest census report: Despite Austin’s rapid growth, the city will remain just outside the top 10 most populous cities for at least a decade. As the American-Statesman’s Juan Castillo reported in Sunday’s paper, the 10th most populous city in the country is San Jose, Calif., and it has a considerable population lead over Austin. The Census Bureau estimates San Jose’s population is 982,765, 140,173 ahead of Austin’s 842,592. San Jose is growing, too, but not at the same rate as Austin. It should take another 10 or 12 years for Austin to take over the No. 10 spot.
And that is where Austin probably will stay for the rest of my lifetime, assuming current trends and city boundaries more or less hold. Dallas is No. 9, with a population of 1,241,162. That’s a 400,000-person lead over Austin, and Dallas is adding almost as many people each year as Austin. In the No. 8 spot is San Diego, which Dallas might pass around 2030 but Austin won’t pass, given current trends, for another 68 years.