Rumor has had it that Big D isn’t so Big anymore. Rumor says that San Antonio, quaint little ol’ San Antone, is now bigger than Dallas. The Herald started it all with a front page story which had these stats, as of July 1, 1977: San Antonio 801,475, Dallas 800,846. A footnote attributed the figures to the U. S. Bureau of the Census. It sounded official.
Boom. The news rippled in media shock waves all over Texas. But hold on. Back up. Here’s what happened. The Herald had taken Census Bureau reports citing a decline in population in the City of Dallas from 844,303 in 1970 to 812,797 in 1975. By projecting that same rate of decline to July, 1977. the Herald arrived at their smaller-than-San-Antonio figure. Unfortunately, the Census Bureau in Washington had actually revised the 1975 figure upward to 822,451, but hadn’t bothered to notify their Dallas office, the Herald’s source. Using the new figures, Dallas’ projected 1977 population is about 813,000, nosing out (for now) San Antonio’s 801,000.
But even that’s not for sure. City of Dallas officials estimate the city’s population as of July 1 at 875,000. The San Antonio Department of Planning lists its latest headcount(April 1, 1977) at 802,000.
One thing is for sure. Fort Worth has fallen to fourth behind El Paso. And that’s official (est.) (proj.).
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