Texas population is barreling toward eye-popping milestone in 2022

growth spurt

Based on recent population growth figures, you should probably get ready for more traffic. Photo courtesy of TxDOT

Texas is edging closer to a milestone — a population of 30 million.

Estimates released December 21 by the U.S. Census Bureau show the population of Texas grew 1.1 percent between July 1, 2020, and July 1, 2021. During that period, the state added 310,288 residents, going from 29,217,653 to 29,527,941. The tally takes into account births, deaths, people moving to Texas, and people moving out of Texas.

Texas ranked first among the states for the number of residents added from 2020 to 2021, which worked out to 850 new residents per day, and seventh for percentage growth. At 2.9 percent, Idaho ranked first for percentage growth.

If Texas maintains a year-to-year growth rate of at least 1.1 percent, the state might break the 30 million mark sometime in 2022. Driving the state’s continued population explosion are people of color, who’ve made up 91 percent of new Texas residents in the 21st century, according to The Texas Tribune.

Lloyd Potter, the state demographer, says it’s conceivable that Texas could be home to 30 million residents in 2022.

“However, our rate of growth has slowed noticeably between 2020 and 2021, with lower fertility, higher mortality, and less international migration. If we add the same number of people estimated to have been added between 2020 and 2021, then it looks like we’ll come up a bit short of 30 million in 2022,” Potter says.

Throughout the country, the COVID-19 pandemic helped drag down population growth from July 2020 to July 2021. The U.S. population rose just 0.1 percent during that period — the smallest one-year increase since the nation was founded.

“Population growth has been slowing for years because of lower birth rates and decreasing net international migration, all while mortality rates are rising due to the aging of the nation’s population,” Kristie Wilder, a demographer at the Census Bureau, says in a news release. “Now, with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, this combination has resulted in a historically slow pace of growth.”

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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The Bayou City is one of the three U.S. metro areas to gain at least 1.2 million residents over the decade. Photo via Getty Images

Houston boasts massive population growth among major U.S. metros from 2010 to 2020

there here

If the massive influx of Newstonians is any clue, the population of Greater Houston keeps exploding.

New figures from the U.S. Census Bureau put that growth into clearer perspective. Data from the 2020 Census released August 12 shows Houston at No. 5 (20.3 percent) among the country's 50 largest metro areas in the biggest jump in population from 2010 to 2020.

Houston maintains its position at No. 5 (7,122,240 residents), the Census data notes. For some perspective, Houston was No. 8 (4,944,332) in the 2010 Census.

The Bayou City is also one of the three U.S. metro areas to gain at least 1.2 million residents over the decade. (Dallas-Fort Worth and New York are the others.)

Harris County picked up at least 300,000 residents (638,686) between 2010 and 2020. Tarrant County in North Texas also owns that distinction.

Elsewhere in Texas, Austin now ranks as the 28th most populous metro area in the U.S. (2,283,371 residents), surpassing Las Vegas (ranked 29th, with 2,265,461 residents) and inching closer to 27th-ranked Pittsburgh (2,370,930 residents).

Among the country's 50 largest metro areas, Austin notched the biggest jump in population from 2010 to 2020 (33 percent), with Dallas-Fort Worth at No. 6 (20 percent), and San Antonio at No. 7 (19.4 percent). Austin ranked second among metro areas of all sizes for population growth during the decade, trailing only The Villages, Florida, a 55-and-over retirement community (39 percent).

Dallas-Fort Worth remains the country's fourth largest metro area (7,637,387 residents counted in the 2020 Census) and San Antonio still ranks 24th (2,558,143 residents).

All four of the state's major metros moved up the ranks of the biggest U.S. regions from 2010 to 2020.

Following the 2010 Census, Dallas-Fort Worth was the country's sixth largest metro area (5,121,892 residents), San Antonio stood at No. 26 (1,758,210), and Austin was 37th (1,362,416). In just 10 years, Austin climbed nine spots up the metro population ladder.

Meanwhile, Fort Worth ranked as the fastest-growing big city in Texas between 2010 and 2020 (24 percent), followed by Austin (21.7 percent), Houston (9.8 percent), Dallas (8.9 percent), and San Antonio (8.1 percent).

"Many counties within metro areas saw growth [from 2010 to 2020], especially those in the South and West. However, as we've been seeing in our annual population estimates, our nation is growing slower than it used to," Marc Perry, senior demographer at the Census Bureau, says in a news release.

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The most at-risk areas are in poorer industrial parts of Houston. Getty Images

Texas researchers map out parts of Houston most vulnerable to COVID-19

zooming in

A group of researchers from the University of Texas and the University of Houston have created a mapping tool for identifying which parts of the greater Houston area are at the greatest risk from COVID-19.

"The map offers a comparative look at vulnerabilities across Harris County, and could help policy makers determine how to allocate coronavirus tests and health and safety resources," says Amin Kiaghadi, a research associate at UT's Oden Institute for Computational Engineering & Sciences and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Houston, in a news release.

The study, which is posted on MedRxiv, looked into access to health care, pollutant exposure, and medical insurance coverage. Kiaghadi and two UH professors, Hanadi Rifai and Winston Liaw, concluded that the areas most at risk were in the east and northeastern parts of town — especially industrial areas and high-traffic waterways.

The research showed that the highest risk areas were identified as poorer communities, like the area near the Houston Ship Channel. Consequently, populations with lower risk are in the far west areas of Harris County, which tend to be considered nicer areas. According to the release, around 17 percent of the county's population falls into a risk category.

"I'm really interested to see how decision makers look at these maps," Kiaghadi continues. "They can say 'this specific area is vulnerable to many different things—people living there have lower income, they have or they don't have access to the medical care— and that can change the way that they distribute the resources."

Kiaghadi usually focuses on floodwaters spread contamination, and he postulates that his work in this field had an application within the pandemic.

"We believe that if you're exposed to some chemicals for a long time or you were living in an area with bad air quality, that can affect your immune system long term and then make you more vulnerable to a disease like COVID-19," Kiaghadi says. "So we decided to take a new approach here and show that these factors should be considered."

Based on census data, the map is divided up into 786 polygons and looks into 46 different variables in five categories:

  1. People with limited access to hospitals and medical care.
  2. People with underlying medical conditions.
  3. People with exposures to environmental pollutants.
  4. People in areas vulnerable to natural disasters and flooding.
  5. People with specific lifestyle factors, like obesity, drinking and smoking.

According to the release, the researchers formulated the map within just a couple weeks.

"We already had a lot of knowledge and experience working with this sociodemographic data, and population vulnerability to the flaws in the environment and exposure," Kiaghadi says. "So we felt like, this is totally related to our research, so why not explore what it means?"

The map is broken down by 786 census tracts. Graphic via utexas.edu

Houston added more than a million people in the last decade. Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images

Bayou City comes close to topping Census Bureau's list for greatest population boom in the country

so popular

The Lone Star State is proving quite popular, at least according to the U.S. Census Bureau. As reported by numbers released on March 26, Texas is home to cities with the fastest-growing large metro area in the nation and the biggest numeric gain of residents.

Those would be Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth, respectively. And we'll delve into their numbers in a minute, because first it's time to talk about Houston.

H-Town actually nipped at DFW's heels in terms of the numeric population gain from 2010 to 2019. In that time, the Houston area picked up 1,145,654 residents, the second highest total among U.S. metros. That's around the number of people who live in the Buffalo, New York, metro area.

Houston stills holds the No. 5 position on the list of the largest U.S. metro areas. The bureau put its 2019 population at 7,066,141, up 19.4 percent from 2010.

Austin, meanwhile, saw its population shoot up 29.8 percent between 2010 and 2019, landing at 2,227,083 as of July 1, 2019. Put another way, the Austin area added 510,760 residents during the one-decade span.

From 2018 to 2019 alone, the Austin area's population rose 2.8 percent, the Census Bureau says. Numerically, the one-year increase was 61,586 (taking into account births, deaths, new arrivals to the area, and people moving away). That works out to 169 people per day.

Helping drive the Austin area's population spike from 2010 to 2019 were two of the country's fastest-growing counties. Hays County ranked as the second-fastest growing county in the U.S. (46.5 percent) in the past decade, the Census Bureau says, with Williamson County at No. 9 (39.8 percent).

In terms of numeric growth, Travis County ranked 10th in the country from 2010 to 2019 with the addition of 249,510 residents, according to the Census Bureau.

While Austin was the fastest-growing major metro area from 2010 to 2019, Dallas-Fort Worth topped the Census Bureau list for the biggest numeric gain. During that period, DFW welcomed 1,206,599 residents. To put that into perspective, that's about the same number of people who live in the entire Salt Lake City metro area.

On July 1, 2019, DFW's population stood at 7,573,136, up 19 percent from 2010. It remains the country's fourth largest metro, behind New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

Although the San Antonio metro area didn't make the top 10 for percentage or numeric growth from 2010 to 2019, two of the region's counties appeared among the 10 fastest-growing counties:

  • Ranked at No. 4, Comal County's population jumped 43.9 percent.
  • Ranked at No. 5, Kendall County's population rose 42.1 percent.

In the previous decade, the San Antonio area's population climbed 19.1 percent, winding up at 2,550,960 in 2019, the Census Bureau says. Over the 10-year period, the region added 408,440 residents.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

Texas added more residents from mid-2018 through mid-2019 than any other state. Marco Bicci/Getty Images

Texas added more residents than any other state in past year

Growing gains

Yes, everything is bigger in Texas — including population growth. From mid-2018 to mid-2019, the Lone Star State added more residents than any other state, new estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show.

From July 2018 to July 2019, the population of Texas grew by 367,215, according to Census Bureau data released December 30. That's close to the number of people who live in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Arlington (398,112).

Keep in mind that this does not mean nearly 370,000 people moved to Texas in just one year. The Census Bureau's new population estimates represent the number of people who moved to and moved out of each state, as well as the number of births versus deaths.

Texas' 2018-19 population growth eclipsed that of the country's largest state, California.

The Golden State saw its population increase by just 50,635 during the one-year period, the Census Bureau says. What's behind the meager growth? From 2018 to 2019, California's net domestic migration plunged by 203,414. Net domestic migration represents the number of people moving to a state versus the number of people moving out of a state.

Here's another eye opener: Texas accounted for nearly one-fourth of the country's population growth from 2018 to 2019 (1,552,022 people). In that time, 10 states lost population, including Illinois, New Jersey, and New York.

In July 2018, the Texas population stood at an estimated 28,628,666. By July 2019, that figure had climbed to 28,995,881, the Census Bureau says. On a percentage basis, Texas' 2018-19 population growth (1.28 percent) ranked fifth among the states.

Perhaps more impressive is how much Texas expanded from April 2010 (when the last official U.S. headcount was conducted) to July 2019. During that period, Texas added 3,849,790 residents, according to the Census Bureau. To put that into perspective, nearly 4 million people live in the entire state of Oklahoma. Texas' population jumped 15.3 percent from 2010 to 2019, the third highest growth rate behind the District of Columbia and Utah.

Experts cite economic and job growth — along with a low cost of living, a low cost of doing business, and low taxes compared with many other states — as drivers of Texas' population boom. Helping fuel the boom are substantial population spikes in the state's four largest metro areas: Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio.

In 2030, the state's population is projected to approach 34.9 million, according to a forecast from the Texas Demographic Center.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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These 5 trailblazing Houston startups are leading the energy transition

meet the finalists

Houston is home to a growing number of startups reshaping what it means to be called the "Energy Capital of the World."

As part of the 2026 Houston Innovation Awards, our Energy Transition Business category honors those innovative startups that are providing solutions within renewables, climatetech, clean energy, alternative materials, circular economy and more.

Five clean energy startups have been named finalists for the 2026 award. The finalists, selected by our esteemed panel of judges, range from a lower-emission steel producer to a diagnostics platform developer working to support batteries used in data centers.

Read more about these innovative businesses, their initiatives, and their inspirational founders below. The 2026 winners will be announced on InnovationMap.com in mid-November.

Capwell Services

Methane capture company Capwell Services works to eliminate vented oil and gas emissions economically for operators. According to the company, methane emissions are vented from most oil and gas facilities due to safety protocols, and operators are not able to capture the gas cost-effectively, leading operators to emit more than 14 million metric tons of methane per year in the U.S. and Canada. Founded in 2022, Capwell specializes in low and intermittent flow vents for methane capture.

The company began as a University of Pennsylvania senior design project led by CEO Andrew Lane. It has since participated in programs with Greentown Labs, the Rice Clean Energy Accelerator and the Creative Destruction Lab Energy Cohort at Texas A&M University. The company moved to Houston in 2023 and raised a pre-seed round. It deployed two commercial units this year, according to its application.

FlowCellutions

Energytech startup FlowCellutions is developing a chemistry-agnostic diagnostics platform for flow and metal-air batteries supporting data centers and critical infrastructure. The platform is designed to help reduce operating costs, prevent failures and costly downtime, and extend battery lifetime from approximately seven years to more than 30 years. It has deployed four paid pilots and plans to take insights from the programs to develop its next-gen sensor platform technology.

CEO Becca Segel founded the company in 2022. It is a member of Greentown Labs, and Segel was a 2025 Activate Fellow. The company has raised over $2 million in non-dilutive funding and received a $1.5 million NSF SBIR Fast-Track award earlier this year.

Hertha Metals

Hertha Metals produces lower-cost, lower-emission steel and high-purity iron. The company has developed a single-step process that uses natural gas as a direct reductant instead of metallurgical coal, which cuts production costs by more than 25 percent and emissions by up to 50 percent, according to the company. The same process produces high-purity iron needed for high-purity steels and rare earth magnets. The company says it aims to "re-industrialize America’s production of critical materials."

Hertha Metals was founded by CEO Laureen Meroueh in 2022 and emerged from stealth last year with more than $17 million in venture capital funding. The company closed a $133.65 million Series A this month and also broke ground on its $100M high-purity iron factory known as Chalyx in Conroe.

Mars Materials

Clean chemical manufacturing business Mars Materials is working to convert captured carbon into resources, such as carbon fiber and wastewater treatment chemicals. The company develops and produces its drop-in chemical products in Houston and uses an in-licensed process for the National Renewable Energy Lab to produce acrylonitrile, which is used to produce plastics, synthetic fibers, and rubbers.

Founded in 2019 by CEO Aaron Fitzgerald, CTO Kristian Gubsch, and vice president of operations Trey Sheridan, the company has secured over $7.2M in financing and is backed by Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy, Shell, Black & Veatch, and other organizations. It won in the Minority-founded Business Category in last year's Houston Innovation Awards.

Solidec

Chemical manufacturing company Solidec has developed autonomous generators that extract molecules from water and air and convert them into pure chemicals and fuels that are free of carbon emissions on-site, eliminating the need for transport, storage, and permitting. The company was founded around innovations developed by Rice University associate professor Haotian Wang.

The company was selected for the Chevron Technology Ventures’ Catalyst Program, Greentown Labs, NSF I-Corps and was part of the first cohort of the Activate Houston program. It won first place at the 2024 startup pitch competition at CERAWeek. Solidec was founded in 2023 by Wang, who serves as an advisor, CEO Ryan DuChanois, and CTO Yang Xia. It closed a $2.5 million seed round in 2025.

Houston businessman and philanthropist to receive legendary Texas award

Making History

The Texas State History Museum Foundation (TSHMF) has set the date for its 23rd annual Texas Independence Day Dinner and unveiled the 2027 recipients of its prestigious History-Making Texan Award, which includes a prominent Houston businessman.

Since 2005, the organization has honored "living Texas legends whose contributions to the state and the nation have been truly historic and exceptional in scope and nature." Past galas have recognized prominent Texas figures such as former presidents George H.W. and George W. Bush and former first ladies Barbara and Laura Bush, as well as H-E-B chairman Charles Butt, among others.

The two 2027 History-Making Texan Award recipients are Texas Historical Commission chairman, businessman, and philanthropist John L. Nau, III, and trailblazing Texas actor, director, producer, and writer Taylor Sheridan. The 2027 gala will be held at the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin on March 2, Texas Independence Day.

"Our honorees are national leaders whose accomplishments have elevated Texas’ distinctive place on the national and international stage," Debbie Raynor, dinner chair and TSHMF Trustee, said in a statement. "John L. Nau, III and Taylor Sheridan have each, in very different ways, helped tell the Texas story — one through the preservation of our history and treasured places, the other through the power of storytelling that has brought Texas and the American West to audiences around the world.

"Nau is the former chairman and CEO of Silver Eagle Beverages, one of the largest Anheuser-Busch distributors in the U.S. He has served as chairman of the Texas Historical Commission since 2015. Raynor said Nau's "commitment to preservation" extends further than his protection of Texas historic sites "to the stewardship and conservation of the land itself, including his bay area lodge in South Texas and his ranch in West Texas.

"[Nau's] leadership and lifelong dedication to history have earned him national recognition, but perhaps his greatest legacy is his determination to ensure that the stories and places that shaped Texas endure for generations to come," Raynor said.Quadruple-threat filmmaker Sheridan is most widely recognized for his award-winning neo-Western TV series Yellowstone and its associated spin-offs 1883, 1923, Marshals, and Dutton Ranch. Raynor hailed Sheridan for his success in bringing a "remarkable new dimension to the way the world sees Texas and the American West."

"As a creator, writer, director, and executive producer of some of television’s most successful series, he has captured the imagination of audiences across the globe while bringing the people, landscapes, traditions and enduring spirit of the West into millions of homes," she said. "And he does more than tell the Texas story — he lives it, as a native Texan, accomplished horseman and steward of two legendary Texas ranches."

A release estimates about 450 "business, political, and community leaders" attend the Texas Independence Day Dinner each year, and proceeds will benefit the Bullock Museum's educational programs and special projects.

The 2027 Texas Independence Day Dinner will take place March 2, 2027, at the Bullock Museum in Austin. A VIP reception will start at 6:30 pm, followed by a 7 pm reception, and 7:30 dinner and program.

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This article first appeared on CultureMap.com.

Houston bio-based materials startup breaks into footwear

cleaner shoes

A more sustainable shoe can’t be built on a single material swap. From the hard plastics hidden inside a heel to the material covering a sneaker’s upper, footwear is a collection of components—and each presents a different challenge for companies trying to move away from conventional, petroleum-based materials.

Houston-based Rheom Materials wants to change that equation. The biomaterials company has launched a sustainable footwear platform featuring two of its bio-based alternatives: Benree, a biodegradable plastic designed for hard internal components, and ShoraiDura, a durable leather alternative for footwear uppers.

“A shoe is not one material; it is multiple parts working together as a system. Substituting a single material has never moved the needle,” Rheom founder and CEO Zimri Hinshaw said in a news release. “Rheom wants to make it easier for brands to make a positive impact. By providing an assortment of bio-based materials, brands can change the system, not just a swatch of it.”

Benree is Rheom’s alternative to conventional hard plastics used in footwear construction. The company says it is a 100 percent USDA-certified bio-based, biodegradable material with performance comparable to acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), a widely used engineering plastic.

The material has passed SATRA testing for high-heel applications with Bared Footwear, an Australian footwear brand.

“At Bared, we're constantly on a journey to remove plastic from our shoes. At the same time, our brand won't compromise on quality for the end customer,” Millie Richards, Bared’s head of sustainability, added in the release. “From samples and testing, Rheom has proven to be solving both of those problems for us. We look forward to seeing how they develop as a company and would love to use them in our shoes.”

Rheom says it is also exploring Benree for additional internal components, including toe puffs and heel counters.

Rheom's Benree material was used for a high-heel prototype. Photo courtesy Rheom Materials

The company’s ShoraiDura material addresses another major part of shoe construction: the upper, which must withstand repeated flexing, friction and wear while maintaining its appearance.

Containing about 80 percent bio-based content, ShoraiDura is engineered as a durable leather alternative for footwear. Rheom says the material’s molecular structure is designed to deliver the strength and durability required for demanding applications.

To demonstrate how the material could be used in finished products, Rheom worked with a Los Angeles-based footwear manufacturer to create two prototypes: an athletic sneaker and a textured skater shoe, both featuring ShoraiDura uppers.

The two offerings reflect the company’s broader strategy. Rather than asking brands to evaluate a single material in isolation, Rheom is positioning its platform as a way to explore alternatives across different parts of footwear construction.

The next step is broader industry adoption. Benree’s testing with Bared Footwear and ShoraiDura’s footwear prototypes offer early examples of how the materials could be applied, while commercial use will depend on manufacturers’ evaluations and product-development decisions.

Rheom Materials is a Houston-based biomaterials company developing bio-based alternatives to petrochemical plastics. Its product portfolio includes Shorai, a leather alternative, and Benree, a hard plastic alternative.

The company debuted Shorai at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo in 2025 and showed a bio-based "leather" collection in Milan earlier this year. Read more here.

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