Katy Bigger Than Pittsburgh

The Katy area's call to "move over, Pittsburgh" came a year earlier than anticipated.

The suburb west of Houston - with 309,556 residents inside the Katy ISD boundaries - edged out the Pennsylvania city's dwindling population of 308,237 people, according to numbers provided by analytics company Alteryx.

Katy has had Pittsburgh in its sights, but a strong economy and good schools helped propel it faster than expected. "The Katy Area now boasts a larger population," according to a release this month from the Katy Area Economic Development Council.

Pittsburgh has its own dynamics: a seven-county metropolitan region that has growth areas, even as the city itself is seeing slightly smaller population estimates. It's home to Carnegie Mellon University, the Andy Warhol Museum and a slew of theaters.

"We don't have the steel plants like Pittsburgh, we don't have the Steelers," said Skip Conner, former Katy mayor and president of the Katy Insurance Agency, who moved to Katy in 1976 with his family for its small-town appeal.

"I wouldn't live anywhere else because you still have a city, you have the community, you have the people you work with and see every day," he said. And that extends to the large master-planned developments that have moved into the area, as well, where he said community activities are still important. The expanded population has been largely positive, boosting the city's revenues.

"It's generated a lot of income for the city," Conner said. "They've had the funds to expand with the growth. Now we have a fully paid fire department, a fully paid ambulance service, which, when I was mayor, was all volunteer." The new city hall under construction, for example, is being paid for not by new taxes or bond measures but from a fund created by previous administrations.

In addition to thoughtful budgeting and zoning, the city also has moved to add new land over the years, according to current Mayor Fabol Hughes. "We have annexed everything possible to this point and are working with Houston to release some of their (extraterritorial jurisdiction) for our possible future annexation," he said.