Quote:
Originally Posted by Hill Country
Don't give up Genral! It may not be too long before Austin passes San Jose and moves into the 10th spot.
I did some late night math and plugged some formulas into a spreadsheet to compare the population growth of Austin and San Jose. Of course it's hard to predict too far out into the future with any accuracy, so I don't like to do population projections for more than five to 10 years out. Also, I find it best to only use the annual growth rates from the last annual census going back to the previous two decennial censuses.
Using the 2010 to 2014 growth rates of each city Austin should pass San Jose to become the 10th largest city in late 2018. This may not be reflected until the 2020 census since it would be too late in the year to be reflected in the 2019 release.
Using the 2000 to 2014 growth rates of each city Austin will move up to 10th in early 2018 which may be reflected in the 2019 release.
Austin also has one big advantage over San Jose besides a faster growth rate. San Jose is land locked, and population increases need to come from greater density. Austin on the other hand, can annex close to 250,000 people living in unincorporated areas in the ETJ. If Austin would change its current annexation policy and become more aggressive, the population increases would be, well do the math.
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Right. San Jose is surrounded by cities, the Bay and steep rugged mountains on all sides but the south, and they can't expand much further south until they hit Morgan Hill city limits, and Morgan Hill is growing into San Jose faster than San Jose is growing into Morgan Hill. San Jose doesn't really want to provide expensive city services down there. If they grew too much down there, 101 would make IH35 seem like a country lane, and they only have room for one highway down there, because the mountains on the east and west get closer together in the south. They have filled in all the land that they can, and their height restrictions are 250 feet, virtually citywide, because of San Jose International next to downtown and Reid-Hillview airport in the south, not to mention the very stringent earthquake codes due to their silty, sandy soil. San Jose has grown about as much as it can, and considering apartment rents are even higher than San Francisco (imagine that!), they are not likely to be building many of those, and that's exactly why they don't. People could not afford it, and many people who work in San Jose commute from almost 100 miles away (Tracy and Stockton. i.e.), because of that fact. They can catch BART in Concord, halfway, and take light rail/commuter bus from the Fremont-Mission San Jose Bart Station into town. San Jose's policy of encouraging McMansions developments in gentrifying neighborhoods pretty well negates further density.
All Austin would need to do to pass San Jose is to annex not a whole lot of our ETJ, even just the pockets that are entirely encircled by the city. Austin already has to supply many of the services there.