San Antonio's lack of suburbs

[ElectionsGuy]

Unlike the D-FW and Houston areas of Texas, San Antonio does not seem to have nearly as many suburbs. Both of the former metro areas have massive suburban sprawls within the county of the city and in the neighboring counties. However, San Antonio itself is most of Bexar County's population, and the counties around it are pretty small in population. Dallas-Fort Worth has Collin and Denton counties, and Houston has Montgomery, Fort Bend, and Brazoria counties. The biggest county surrounding Bexar is Guadalupe (at 131K). Any idea why this is?

[publicunofficial]

Theory, no idea if it's actually right: San Antonio is surrounded by land that is much less hospitable than near Houston or Dallas-Fort Worth.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

For Bexar County alone, Wikipedia reports that the city annexed large tracts of land. So it looks like that what "should have" been the separate suburban municipalities that you're looking for is just part of the city. I'd guess that what "should be" the city without the suburbs would have a population of only 500K or so (random guess, nothing to actually back this up).


This is also the case with Indianapolis. In 1960 the city had a population of 451,000, but in 1970 the city and almost all of Marion County became one, so the population jumped to 744,000. I'd guess that "old Indy" has a population of 350K or so, as people moved away from the city center to suburbs, but those suburbs were still a part of the city, so the overall population decline in the 1970s wasn't much.

So I'm guessing that Indianapolis and San Antonio "cheated" their way higher in the city rankings by population by annexing all their suburbs.

[cinyc]

San Antonio is almost smack dab in the middle of Bexar County, and has annexed a lot of the land in the county as the population has grown outwards from the core.  Growth is just now spreading beyond county lines, with Comal County (New Braunfels) being the 10th fastest-growing county with a population over 10,000 last year.  The area in between San Antonio and Austin is known as the Texas Hill Country, which also might limit development somewhat.  But with growth from Austin moving south into Hays County (the 6th fastest-growing county last year) and San Antonio sprawling northwestward into Comal County, it's only a matter of time until the I-35 corridor between the two cities becomes more like the I-95 corridor in the Northeast, with suburbs sprawling from Austin to San Antonio.

The north side of San Antonio has traditionally been richer and more Anglo than the south side, while much of Austin's growth traditionally has sprawled northward into Williamson County.

[jimrtex]

Unlike the D-FW and Houston areas of Texas, San Antonio does not seem to have nearly as many suburbs. Both of the former metro areas have massive suburban sprawls within the county of the city and in the neighboring counties. However, San Antonio itself is most of Bexar County's population, and the counties around it are pretty small in population. Dallas-Fort Worth has Collin and Denton counties, and Houston has Montgomery, Fort Bend, and Brazoria counties. The biggest county surrounding Bexar is Guadalupe (at 131K). Any idea why this is?

Cities in Texas have powerful annexation rights.  They can simply pass an ordinance and annex territory.  In addition, cities have what is known as extra territorial jurisdiction (ETJ) which extends outside their city limits.  The distance they extend outside the city limits depends on their population.  For the city of Houston, it extends 5 miles outside the city limits.   Among the restrictions of the ETJ are that it prevents annexation by other cities or formation of other cities.   Cities may also include property they own in their ETJ, and property owners may voluntarily place their land in the ETJ.  Cities annexed long narrow strips of land called fence lines that had the effect of extend the ETJ far outside the city.

Houston Annexation History (PDF)

City of Houston ETJ (PDF)

Over time there has been pushback.   Fenceline annexations are no longer legal.  In addition, cities are required to provide municipal services within a few years of annexation.   Residential property generally is revenue negative, in that cost of services is greater than the property tax revenue.  The reverse is true for commercial and industrial property since they have greater property value and sales tax revenue.   Houston may also be restricted by the VRA since more suburban areas are whiter.

After Houston annexed Kingwood, there were additional restrictions placed on annexation.  Cities must have an annexation plan for the next few years.  By announcing in advance, it provides an opportunity for residents to organize legal resistance.

Cities may go outside the plan with the agreement of the land owner.   And there are what are referred to as limited purpose annexation, where much of the tax revenue from an annexed area goes back into infrastructure for the immediate area.

Dallas was better farming territory, than Houston, and there were a number of small farming towns in Dallas County.  As the population boomed post-WWII in many cases they were able to annex enough territory to block Dallas.   This includes cities such as Mesquite, Garland, and Irving.   Dallas did surround the Park Cities, and did manage to annex a small area in Collin County, before being cut off by cities like Farmers Branch, Plano, Richardson, and Plano.

[memphis]

We've always worked the same way in TN. Memphis has annexed and annexed so much over the years that a majority of people still live in the municipal boundaries of the anchor city. Cordova (38018 and 38016) is as generic and suburban as one could possible imagine, but it's now officially part of Memphis, much to the consternation of the people who live there. In repsonse to these butthurt feelings, the state legislature changed the law last year to require majority approval from people being annexed (which would never, ever happen). Memphis managed to get one last pending annexation grandfathered through the courts (38125), but I think those days are over. It will be interesting to see where things go from here. Memphis is already enormous and nearly all remaining unincorporated areas are pretty darn remote.

[muon2]

IL municipalities have fairly powerful annexation powers, too. They can annex by ordinance if presented with a petition of a majority of landowners (not voters) in an area. If a surrounded area is less than 60 acres, a petition is not required. Planning rights extend out 1.5 miles from their boundaries unless reduced by agreement with a neighboring muni.