AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Four of the nation’s 10 fastest-growing municipalities are suburbs of Texas‘ big cities, census data released Thursday shows…
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Four of the nation’s 10 fastest-growing municipalities are suburbs of Texas’ big cities, census data released Thursday shows, meaning the second largest state in the U.S. could play a big part in the redistricting battle for control of Congress. Texas also grew less white and more urban over the past 10 years, following the same overall trend seen across the country. The new data culled from the 2020 census is coming more than four months later than expected due to delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The redistricting numbers states use for redrawing congressional and legislative districts show where white, Asian, Black and Hispanic communities grew over the past decade. It also shows which areas have gotten older or younger and the number of people living in dorms, prisons and nursing homes. The data covers geographies as small as neighborhoods and as large as states. An earlier set of data released in April provided state population counts and showed the U.S. had 331 million residents last year, a 7.4% increase from 2010. That dataset determined that Texas will pick up two additional U.S. House seats — bringing its total to 38, and two more electoral votes, for a total of 40, making it’s already large footprint on national politics even bigger. Ballooning populations in metropolitan areas comes as many of Texas’ rural areas have shrunk, similar to other parts of the U.S. That — plus the state’s increasingly younger and more diverse demographics — will be important elements to consider in the GOP-controlled process of redrawing the boundaries from which state and federal lawmakers are elected, according to Joshua Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.
