In the early 2000s, my parents and I, originally from Liberia, moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. We’d spent a few years in Massachusetts, where the winters were chilly and the cost of living was more burdensome.
Texas became a haven for my parents — young immigrants striving to make their mark in a country that, at times, felt overwhelmingly unfamiliar and challenging. To them, the state represented many things: A place they could actually save money and get ahead, but that also carried some of the values of hard work and community they left across the Atlantic.
Some two decades on, my parents have accomplished so much. They’ve sent me and my brother to college, launched their own appliance-repair business, and even constructed their dream home — all in DFW.
Given the success they’ve attained in Texas, it’s no wonder to me that the state continues to draw the interest of so many people. Between 2021 and 2022, Texas gained 670,000 new residents, according to Census Bureau data — the second-most of any state, behind only Florida. Recent transplants to Texas have shared with Business Insider in interviews that their moves were motivated by more affordable home and rent prices, political freedom, a slower pace of life, and more.
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As a Texan, it’s unsurprising that these factors have lured hundreds of thousands of people to the state over the past few years. What intrigues me even more is where, exactly, transplants are pursuing the American dream in Texas and how that’s changed since my family touched down on its soil.
The state flag of Texas.
P A Thompson/Getty Images
Rather than relocating to the largest cities in the state, newcomers and long-time residents are increasingly opting for places viewed as secondary cities or suburbs — areas like New Braunfels, nestled in the heart of the Texas hill country between San Antonio and Austin, and Katy, situated 30 minutes west of Houston.
Census data that compares Texas’ city populations between 2020 and mid-2022 estimates reveals that smaller spots, including New Braunfels and Katy, saw their populations surge. Meanwhile, major metropolises like Austin, Houston, and Dallas witnessed minimal growth — and sometimes even net population declines.
I set out to figure out why.
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Larger Texas cities are losing appeal for some
Many friends and I had aspirations of moving from our small college town to Dallas or Austin — cities that, back then, appeared larger than life to us.
However, years post-graduation, many who ventured to these large cities have either returned to their smaller hometowns or established roots in the suburbs surrounding those dense metropolises.
They’re looking for affordability and a more joyful way of life — ingredients that can be harder to find in bigger Texas cities.
Austin, Texas.
Evan Semones
Take Austin, for example. A surge in new residents driven by a blossoming Big Tech scene and an upswing in remote work nationwide has reshaped its essence. Once known for its laid-back atmosphere and a plethora of mom-and-pop shops, some people now believe the city features too many cookie-cutter buildings, upscale restaurants, and traffic jams that diminish its “small-town” charm. The arrival of transplants with higher incomes has also elevated housing costs, pricing out locals and dissuading prospective homebuyers who once had aspirations of owning in the city.
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Each month, the home-listings site Redfin analyzes the number of people in cities across the US who browse for properties within their own city compared to those who house-hunt outside of where they already live. Redfin sees the comparison as an indicator of whether more people are looking to stay or leave a city.
Austin? For the first time on record, Redfin reported in October, it has more people dreaming of a move out.
Homebuyers are drawn to Texas’ smaller cities
The cultural and economic shifts observed in Austin are playing out in large cities all over Texas.
As a result, many homebuyers are seeking out more affordable and down-to-earth secondary cities such as Katy and New Braunfels. Both areas are among the fastest-growing cities in the US, according to census data.
The concept of the American Dream has historically regarded owning a home as a crucial milestone. Over the past few months, I’ve spoken with several homebuyers who said that they had a greater chance of pursuing the homeownership element of the (very pricey) American Dream in Texas — and in secondary cities in particular.
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Darling and her boys in front of their home in Katy.
Courtesy of Keyana Darling
In October, I interviewed Keyana Darling, a 29-year-old single mother who moved to Katy earlier this year. Prior to our conversation, Katy — a city west of Houston known for, among other things, great schools — wasn’t really on my radar. It had only caught my attention after hearing it mentioned in Drake’s 2020 pop hit “Desire.”
Darling told me that before moving to Katy, she lived in a high-rise rental apartment in downtown Houston that cost $2,900 a month. Then she became concerned about her family’s safety.
“There were apartment and car break-ins, and the homelessness situation was just crazy,” she said. “I felt like I couldn’t walk my dog outside.”
After visiting a friend in Katy, she felt motivated to move to the city herself, believing that its relatively cheaper real estate offered her a better chance at homeownership than Houston.
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“My friend was younger than me, so I thought if she could buy a home there, I could, too,” she said.
Darling was right. In August, she purchased a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home for $324,000.
She told me that moving to Katy not only gave her a chance to build generational wealth for her children, but also provide them with neighbors who feel like family.
“Katy is very diverse, and I actually love it,” Darling said. “Being a Black single mother, the fact that I have so many different neighbors who all come from different backgrounds and races and are genuinely good people is huge.”
Janelle Crossan and her son moved from Costa Mesa, California, to New Braunfels, Texas, in November 2020.
Courtesy of Janelle Crossan
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Just this week, I caught up with California native Janelle Crossan, a 44-year-old single mother who also opted for smaller-town life in Texas. She chose New Braunfels, a town between Austin and San Antonio best known for its German heritage and the iconic Schlitterbahn Waterpark.
“I realized that a lot of the things that I wanted to get away from in California might also just be big-city things, so I decided to try something new,” she said. “I just want my whole life to be different. I put my brakes down in New Braunfels, and I absolutely love it here.”
Crossan, a divorcée who struggled to make ends meet in the California town of Mesa, was also seeking an affordable place to buy a home and a “cute and nice place to raise kids.” After moving to New Braunfels in 2020, Crossan went on to purchase her first home for $240,000.
“I paid $1,750 for rent in a crappy little apartment in California,” Crossan told Business Insider’s Erin Snodgrass earlier this year. “Now, three years later, my whole payment, including mortgage and property taxes, is $1,800 a month for my three-bedroom house.”
Reviewing all of the evidence, I had my answer.
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Glimmers of possibility and opportunity, the same American Dream my parents sought, are now drawing movers to smaller spots, where movers believe that lower costs of living and close-knit communities are more attainable.
Diving into the census data with the help of BI’s economic data editor Andy Kiersz, I saw that the Texas towns and cities with the most population growth are indeed outside big cities. Populations more than doubled in Josephine, Caddo Mills, and Celina, all outside my family’s home of DFW. In Liberty Hill, outside Austin. And in Fulshear, outside Houston.
It’s unsurprising to me that so many Americans are chasing the American dream in Texas. Despite challenges like higher property taxes, divisive politics, and an antiquated energy grid, the state remains a desirable place to live.
Perhaps what’s more interesting, at least to me, is the rise of what could be called Texas’ underdog cities. It highlights just how much things have changed since my parents arrived in Texas to realize their own dreams more than two decades ago.
Fields of green sugarcane now sit barren after the only sugar mill in Texas, the Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers, Inc., closed in February due to a lack of water.
It’s a difficult reality for farmers like Sam Sparks who have grown sugarcane for years.
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“It’s really, really sad,” Sparks, who farms and ranches in Mercedes, said. “It’s strange to prepare a crop plan for the year and to not have sugarcane involved. It’s going to take a while to really settle in.”
Sparks’ family was instrumental in Texas sugarcane production and the mill from the beginning. His grandfather was one of the region’s first growers and a chairman of the mill’s board of directors.
Sparks continued the family legacy of growing cane and serving on the board.
But that’s come to an end and his fields of sugarcane have been plowed under as the decades-old industry is officially over in Texas. The water issues plaguing the crop and the region are driven by severe drought conditions, and reservoirs are also at an all-time low.
Much of the problem, however, centers along the neighboring country to the south. Mexico is significantly behind on the water it owes the U.S. under the 1944 Water Treaty, further exacerbating the water issue for Valley farmers.
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Under the treaty, Mexico is required to deliver 1,750,000 acre-feet of water every five years, which is an average of 350,000 acre-feet annually. The current five-year cycle ends in October 2025, and Mexico is behind by more than 700,000 acre-feet.
“Over the years, they’ve built up multiple dams and have been collecting water and not giving the United States the water that is owed in the treaty,” he said. “If Mexico were to give the water that it owes the United States, the mill would still be in operation and there’d still be cane grown in the Rio Grande Valley.”
Mexican government officials cite the drought as the reason for the delay in water deliveries.
“Right now, we do have a delay in water deliveries. That’s the reality this current cycle, but our intention is to mitigate that deficit as much as possible,” Manuel Morales, secretario de la Sección Mexicana for CILA, told the Texas Tribune.
Citrus orchards, vegetables, other fruits and traditional row crops all require water—water that isn’t available. That could eventually mean the same fate as sugarcane—ceasing to exist in the Valley.
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“Water issues that we have with Mexico affects all crops growing in the Rio Grande Valley that need irrigation water,” he said. “If we don’t have the irrigation water to supply those crops, we just can’t grow them. Then all the logistics, the infrastructure goes away, as well.”
Just because farmers have water rights doesn’t mean they’ll have water this year. Many districts in the region didn’t allocate irrigation water for farmers, and counties have issued disaster declarations and implemented water restrictions.
That means thousands of normally irrigated acres will go unplanted this year.
“It’s desperate times right now in the Rio Grande Valley,” Sparks said.
A report released this year by Texas A&M AgriLife Extension shows the Valley could lose over $495 million in total crop production.
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Farmers are feeling the losses, and so are the rural communities where they live.
When farmers are planting fewer acres, they need fewer employees. And with the sugar mill closing, about 500 employees are now without a job.
“There’s a tremendous amount of families that this directly affects, and then all the other commerce that goes along with cane production,” Sparks said. “It’s a significant economic blow to the Rio Grande Valley.”
Enforcing the 1944 Water Treaty is a priority issue for Texas Farm Bureau (TFB).
The state organization has hosted meetings with lawmakers, government agencies and farmers and ranchers. Congress also passed a resolution, which TFB supported, that encouraged negotiations to guarantee more predictable and reliable water deliveries from Mexico to the U.S.
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“Unless substantive actions are taken to force Mexico to comply with the treaty, this problem will continue to further impact agriculture, municipalities and other sectors of the region,” TFB President Russell Boening said. “TFB stands ready to continue working with state and federal officials to combat this issue and preserve the future of Rio Grande Valley agriculture.”
Right now, farmers and ranchers like Sparks are waiting on a hurricane to bring much-needed rainfall or for Mexico to deliver the water it owes.
Both are a gamble, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
The Texas woman whose home was turned into a squatter’s “drug den” and sold her furniture in a yard sale said she hired the man as a recommended repairman from TikTok.
Terri Boyette appeared in front of a Texas Senate committee on Wednesday to reveal the horrors she faced while trying to remove the vagrants from her home.
“This is burglary. This is breaking and entering,” said Texas State Senator Paul Bettencourt, the committee chairman, according to Fox 4 Dallas.
“He was selling your possessions on your front lawn. I am outraged. This should not happen in Texas, and it will never happen again after we get this bill passed.”
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Boyette’s nightmare started when she fired the worker off the social media platmore last June to make repairs on her home while she cared for her elderly mother in Florida, according to WFAA.
While away, the repairman began squatting in Boyette’s Mesquite home, about 14 miles from Downtown Dallas, and allowed other strangers to do so with him.
A painter had broken in and wrecked the place, leaving crack pipes in her oven and needles in a drawer, Boyette told The Post in March.
The homeowner hired the worker to help fix up her home while she was in Florida helping her elderly mother last summer. ABC 8
For nearly a year, they turned her home into a biohazard zone, with police telling her they were unable to resolve the issue.
In December, a judge finally granted an eviction notice to remove the worker from the home, but with the holidays approaching, the judge extended the squatter’s appeal by 30 days.
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“She didn’t want him to be homeless over the holidays, which left me homeless over the holidays,” Boyette told WFAA.
Once the suspected squatter knew he would be evicted from the home, he started selling off her washer, dryer, refrigerator and dining room table.
Terri Boyette said for nearly a year, the squatter and the other vagrants made the inside look like a biohazard zone. ABC 8
The alleged squatter was served with his final eviction notice on Feb. 6 and was formally evicted on March 20.
But as it nears a year since the repairman and others began living in the home, Boyette said she’s still been unable to move back in due to the havoc and disarray left behind by multiple vagrants
Boyette’s Mesquite home was one of 475 such squatter cases in the Dallas-Forth Worth area, according to Bettencourt.
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But he and other lawmakers plan to put the issue to rest with new legislation.
The repairman had begun squatting in Boyette’s house and allowed other strangers to do so with him. ABC 8She said in June, she contacted the Mesquite police, who explained to her there was nothing they could do to remove the squatters from her residence. ABC 8
Bettencourt found that Texas, like many other states, does not clearly define a squatter or what a homeowner can legally pursue to define a person as such in court.
He has since launched the committee to find an answer for the legal loopholes many vagrants use to shack up in homes they don’t pay rent on or illegally enter and claim to be tenants.
Sen. Royce West, one of the legislators who sits on the committee, asked Boyette why the Mesquite Police Department wasn’t able to remove the squatters.
Boyette detailed how police left her high and dry for months, and the issue was only resolved after months of back-and-forth in the courts.
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As it nears a year since the repairman and others began living in the home, Boyette said she’s still been unable to move back in due to its conditions. ABC 8The Mesquite Police Department said that Boyette’s issue has been resolved, and it was “handled appropriately and professionally, with due regard for existing state law.” ABC 8
“I called the police. They said, ‘How long has he been there?’ I said about two weeks. They said this is a civil matter,” she told the committee.
Boyette revealed the alleged squatter returned to the home in April, banging on the door and demanding to enter.
Boyette appeared in front of the committee to detail her story with the squatters. Fox 4 DallasTexas State Senator Paul Bettencourt. Fox 4 Dallas
The man was later arrested on a criminal trespass complaint.
“It makes no sense. No sense at all. I am starting to get outrageous as well,” West proclaimed. “I want to know from Mesquite PD what they don’t understand about the statute.”
“They said because no one was living there,” Boyette told the senator.
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“That’s a bunch of crap,” he replied about the ineptitude of law enforcement.
Legislators from both parties have demanded answers from the police.
Bettencourt has requested the Mesquite Police Department to attend their next meeting to explain why the man was not removed from the home.
With the 2024 college football season less than four months away, a slew of kick-off times have been released to the public. The most notable is Texas A&M’s season-opening matchup vs. Notre Dame on Saturday, Aug. 31, which will air on ABC, the new home for SEC Football.
For the next three months, we at Aggies Wire will provide as much content as possible regarding the matchup, which will be the first between both programs since the 2001 season, and returning to Kyle Field to open up the inaugural campaign for Aggies head coach Mike Elko.
For older Aggies and Notre Dame alums, the first meeting between the two schools dates back to New Year’s Day in 1988 in the Cotton Bowl. The Cotton Bowl was a popular bowl game for Texas A&M during the Jackie Sherrill and R.C. Slocum coaching eras, with seven appearances dating back to the mid-1980s. After their first meeting, back-to-back matchups occurred in 2000 and 2001 before the recent drought.
This big-time matchup could dictate both team’s postseason hopes, so what a way to open up the 2024 season for these two squads. Looking back at the matchup history, we analyzed the All-Time results of the five All-Time meetings.
Texas A&M’s 1987 season was a massive success. The team finished the regular season with a 9-2 record, including an impressive 6-1 record in the Southwest conference. For Notre Dame, legendary Lou Holtz finished his second season at 8-4, as Hall of Fame WR Tim Brown would finish his collegiate career with a 35-10 blowout loss to the Aggies.
Coming off a perfect 12-0 finish, Texas A&M’s staunch “wrecking crew” defense apparently took a break in the 1993 Cotton Bowl, allowing Notre Dame to run all over the place, including 34 consecutive rushing attempts in the second half.
A controversial year for Notre Dame, Florida State was rewarded the 1993 National Championship after receiving more votes in the final poll, even though the Irish had defeated the Seminoles earlier in the season. A 10-1 regular finish for the Aggies meant another trip to the Cotton Bowl to take on Notre Dame for the second consecutive season, only to fall in a close 24-21 contest.
2000 Season Opener — Notre Dame 24, Texas A&M 10
Tom Hauck /Allsport
Another beatdown for the Maroon & White against the Fighting Irish, Texas A&M traveled to South Bend to face an option-based offense behind quarterback turned wide receiver Arnaz Battle. The Aggies failed to find their mojo until the second week of the season. Oh, and this remains the only visit to South Bend in program history.
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2001 Season Opener — Texas A&M 24, Notre Dame 3
Ronald Martinez/Allsport
Finally, a win against Notre Dame, this time inside Kyle Field during the third week of the 2001 season, even though this was by far one of the worst Irish offenses in program history. Hey, a win is a win!
All-Time Results
Ronald Martinez/Allsport
As it stands, Notre Dame holds a slight 3-2 lead in the series as the 2024 season-opening battle will be the first matchup since 2001, as new Aggies head coach Mike Elko, who served as Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator in 2017, will also face his former Duke Quarterback, Riley Leonard, who transferred to Notre Dame this offseason. In 2025, Texas A&M will travel to South Bend for a Sept 13 matchup for just the second time in program history.
