About

Please click the below link to view all the news articles and press releases that are available on the City of Fort Worth's government website.

The city regains its status as the 12th-largest city in the America. Austin, that's us right on your rear.

Fort Worth, with a population of 978,468, has regained its status as the 12th-largest city in the U.S., moving past San Jose, California, according to estimates released on Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The city is a mere 1,400 behind No. 11 Austin and 7,300 behind No. 10 Jacksonville, Florida.

Dallas, at 1,302,868, is the ninth-largest city in America. Big D added 5,500 people, a 0.42% increase.

Fort Worth enjoyed the second-largest increase for cities with populations more than 20,000 between July 1, 2022, and July 1, 2023, gaining 21,365. San Antonio, population 1,495,295, experienced the largest increase at 21,970.

Of the top 10 cities with the largest increases, five were in Texas, including Houston, Georgetown, and Celina. All 10 were in the South, including Jacksonville. Moreover, eight of the 15 fastest-growing cities were in Texas, including five in North Texas. 

“Thirteen of the 15 fastest-growing cities were in the South, with eight in Texas alone,” said Crystal Delbé, a statistician in the Census Bureau’s Population Division.

Celina’s population grew by 26.6%, more than 53 times that of the nation’s growth rate of 0.5%.

Texas’ 2023 estimates stood at 30.5 million, up almost 475,000 people from 2022.

In 2020, census analysts projected Fort Worth to reach a population of 1 million by 2028. Since 2010, the city has added more than 237,000 people.

In Fort Worth, it's not just the population that is growing. New projects the City Council has incentivized are expected to add 4,000 jobs this year.

“Our success as a city is contingent upon our commitment to quality of life policies and investments,” Mayor Mattie Parker said last week at the United States Conference of Mayors meeting in Fort Worth. “People are quite literally voting with their feet. When people could live anywhere, they’re choosing to live in Fort Worth.”

Amid notable examples of growth in the South, other fast-growing cities saw their rates of population change slow. For example, population growth in Georgetown slowed by more than one-fourth its population growth in 2022, from 14.4% to 10.6%.

New York (8.3 million) remained the most populous city in the U.S., followed by Los Angeles (3.8 million), Chicago (2.6 million), Houston (2.3 million), and Phoenix (1.6 million).

Los Angeles lost only 1,800 people last year, following a decline in the 2020s of almost 78,000 residents. Chicago, which has lost almost 82,000 people this decade, only had a population drop of 8,200 residents last year.

And San Francisco, which has lost a greater share of residents this decade than any other big city — almost 7.5% — actually grew by more than 1,200 residents last year.

For the first time in 66 years, Detroit grew in population, a fact that Mayor Mike Duggan said was cause for "a day of celebration" for Michigan's largest city.

Detroit gained 1,852 people, putting the city's population at 633,218. It marks the first time the city has gained population year over year since 1957.

The nation’s housing stock grew by about 1.6 million units between July 1, 2022, and July 1, 2023, reaching a total of 145.3 million. The 1.1% increase was nearly the same as the 1.2% increase between 2021 and 2022. 

Tarrant County was among the top 15 in the country with 17,194 housing units added. Denton and Dallas, 14,296 and 13,644, respectively, earned spots, as did Collin County, which had the fifth most added in the country at 18,000.

California had the largest number of housing units (14.8 million), followed by Texas (12.4 million) and Florida (10.5 million), while Wyoming (280,000) and Alaska (330,000) had the fewest housing units.

Fort Worth’s population is inching closer to one million after adding more residents than any other city in the country in 2022, according to new Census data. 

The city welcomed 19,170 more people between July 1, 2021, and July 1, 2022. This brings Fort Worth’s total population for 2022 to 956,709, according to the Census figures released May 18. 

While Fort Worth’s growth is notable, it has been keeping pace with its past numbers, said Eric Fladager, assistant director of planning and data analytics for the city. 

“If you go back and look at the last 20 years, Fort Worth is either at or near the top of the fastest-growing markets in the United States,” he said. “This is not out of line with what we would expect.”

When it comes to quantifying the increase, Fladager notes that it equates to around or a little over 50 people a day. 

“It’s kind of like a busload of folks arriving every day,” he said. 

Fort Worth remains the 13th largest city in the country and is the fifth largest in Texas, behind Houston, San Antonio, Dallas and Austin. 

New York, despite a population decrease, remains the nation’s largest city  No. 1 (8.3 million) and Los Angeles is No. 2.

Fladager estimates Fort Worth will hit a population of 1 million by 2027 or 2028 if the numbers stay consistent. 

“Many of the cities that are on the top list have actually lost population since 2020. So there’s not an even playing field in terms of how growth happens or does not happen,” he said. 

Texas was also the only state with more than three cities on both the 15 fastest-growing large cities and towns lists in raw numbers and percentage change.

Georgetown, north of Austin, was the nation’s fastest-growing city over 50,000 in percentage change, at 14.4 %. Other Texas cities among the top 15 on that list include Kyle, Leander, Little Elm, Conroe and New Braunfels.

While population growth was notable in the major urban areas in Texas, some of the smaller cities on the edge of big metros are also growing very quickly, said Kyle Walker, associate professor of geography and director of the Center for Urban Studies at Texas Christian University. 

“You see DFW and Fort Worth being attractive places to move to in part because housing costs are comparatively low, and economic opportunities are certainly available. We have a lot of amenities,” Walker said. “There’s room to grow… It is difficult to build a major city that is connected to open space. It’s rare for a city to be able to do both of those things at once.”

Fort Worth is in the process of working on its Comprehensive Plan, which lays out long-term planning strategies for the city over the next 20 years. Those numbers are valuable in that planning process. 

The increasing growth rate makes this process even more important, Fladager said. 

“It’s important for us, in large part based on that growth, based on the changes in economic opportunities, based on the city’s focus and the city council’s very clear focus on the quality of life,” Fladager said. “Making Fort Worth really one of the greatest cities in the country and one that folks want to come to.”

Sandra Sadek is a Report for America corps member, covering growth for the Fort Worth Report. You can contact her at sandra.sadek@fortworthreport.org or on Twitter at @ssadek19.