Cool story bro.

It’s not like there’s a lack of space in Texas to necessitate a city there to grow to 20 million.

id get depressed living in texas because theres no snow. maybe there will be if theres a mini ice age.

IMO Houston's main drawback is transit. If you don't have access to, or want, a car the vast majority of Houston is effectively out of reach. Dallas/Fort Worth have an impressive light and commuter rail system despite being as sprawly (and under the same state policies), and while MetroRail is a nice start it seems to have stagnated.

There is also the looming spectre of sea level rise which will turn Buffalo Bayou (and much of the refineries) into an inlet of Galveston Bay by the end of this century (projected 3 foot rise and accelerating).

Houston has about -9k is domestic migration the last two years during the worst economic slump its had since the 1980s.

Total births had a very small dip of a few hundred during this economic slump (which makes sense). Houston still has one of the youngest populations in the US too, so not where you're seeing that it's getting older. The international migration numbers in the 2010s have seen a very healthy increase over the 2000s.

Source: https://www.recenter.tamu.edu/data/p...gar_Land%2C_TX

The overall urban core in the Houston area is increasing faster than any other in the Texas Triangle. There's been a residential highrise and 3-to-4 story townhome boom. Some of it is due to the recent flooding and people wanting to live higher up.

If the city can improve on transit (aka not let this BS BRT go through and give the voters what they voted for...LRT), build more flood control, and allow for the incorporation of the unincorporated areas which is now larger than the city, I think Houston can continue to grow healthy.

I don't see Houston's metro getting that big. Maybe about 12 million. I think the metro in Texas that has the best shot of getting anywhere near 20 million is the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. Whatever happens will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Even DFW will have a hard time getting there. It definitely feels more crowded now than ever before, and the vast majority of the growth has taken place north of DFW Airport. The economic opportunity for those on the southern side isn't as high. You've seen this correlate with increases in crime, specifically murder, in south Dallas. I think at a point, other metro areas like Kansas City (which is a mini-DFW) and Oklahoma City can receive more of the spillover growth once DFW gets above 12M as people/companies look for a slightly smaller, less congested metro to relocate but still have some big city amenities.

Accepted that Houston is more susceptible to stronger storms than NYC, but with climate change, NYC will be tested by serious weather events unlike ever before.

Sandy was just a small prelude of what's to come for coastal cities, unfortunately.

del

Where did you get that a huge slowdown of immigration is coming to the US?

It already happened. Immigration rates have plummeted in recent years, which is a catastrophe for urban America and for business start-up activity.

The US have added 33 million people/decade in 2000, in 2010 it slowed to 27 million and will probably be between 23-24 million in 2020. It probably go below 20 million on the next decade.

Those crazy scenarios for growth won't happen anywhere. Natural growth plunging, immigration on low levels, age average high and relatively much less people available on Rust Belt to fuel domestic migration to the Sun Belt.

About Houston, let's assume the add some sparsely populated counties (west and north) on their CSA reaching something like 35,000 km² of area (today it's 30,600 km² ). For a population of 15 million, that would be only 400 inh./km². That's less than England or Netherlands. At this point, as I said in one of the locked threads, it wouldn't work as a big metropolis, but a region with several nodes working as independent cities, with ultra-low density suburbs instead of fields between them. So even if those growth rates kept going, it wouldn't look like a metropolis like Los Angeles or London.

Maybe more like Sydney with its satellite cities then.

I don't think Houston's environment or infrastructure could even handle 20 million. And would we even want that?

Apparently you've never heard of the 1938 storm that crushed Long Island and New England. That was long before The Climate Change started!!!

It was a cat 5, cat 3 at landfall, destroyed 60,000 houses, killed nearly 700 people.

That and the random intraplate earthquake which can hit at almost anytime up there. Natural disasters happen all over this country and some places like the NE can have several types. This is why I don't understand when people point the finger at the Gulf Coast, specifically Houston, when the area they're in is not immune.

You don't understand the difference between high risk and extremely low risk? :???:

As has already been stated, the water is too cold this far north. There are no Cat-5s coming to NYC. In contrast, the Gulf is extremely warm, so Cat-5s can come anytime. Of course there are damaging storms in the north, but it's almost impossible for something greater than Cat-3 hitting this far north, so the relative risk is much less.

It's like comparing the risk of tornados between Oklahoma and Vermont, or the risk of wildfires between California and Michigan. Yes, all these areas have risk, but the risk isn't remotely comparable.

There's higher chances of hurricanes hitting the NE than tornadoes in Vermont or wildfires in Michigan. You're assuming the absolute worst risk of a Cat-5, but it doesn't take a Cat-5 to cause tremendous damage (see Sandy). I never said the Gulf Coast was not at a higher risk for hurricanes either, but to believe the NE is immune to hurricanes or earthquakes is being dishonest.

What do you mean by plummeted?

Literally no one is saying the northeast is immune to hurricanes.