by Wanda Conlin saw Fort Worth grow from the picturesque open space behind her West Meadowbrook neighborhood for sixty-three years. As the city expanded from its Western origins into an era embracing artificial intelligence and data centers, she witnessed the proliferation of gleaming buildings downtown from that elevated vantage point.
Mondays through October will see the publication of the Report’s special 1 Million & Counting growth series, of which this is the first story. On October 23, the downtown Tarrant County College Trinity River Campus will host a growth summit as a result of the findings.
Fort Worth has more than a million residents and is expected to grow by another 400,000 by 2050, making it the eleventh largest city in the country this year. As dense housing complexes expand and the city struggles to sustain services, the population explosion will have a profound and wide-ranging effect. Sprawl will also have an impact on water use, transportation congestion, and other issues.
In order to meet residents’ needs—more housing, roads, water, and jobs—city and community officials must address the increasing pains.
As North Texas continues to grow and is expected to add an additional 4 million citizens in the ensuing decades, The Fort Worth Report is starting a series that will explore the opportunities and difficulties the city confronts on these and other problems.
The city’s 2026 bond program, which is anticipated to comprise 840 million dollars in public infrastructure improvements, is a first step.
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Conlin, a former member of the zoning and city plan commissioners for Fort Worth, is aware that the city’s growth requires mixed-use, retail, and housing developments. However, like many locals, she is concerned about ancillary problems like resources, the environment, and density.
“We’re expanding too quickly,” the 96-year-old remarked. The infrastructure is too fast for us. We will need to address the water problems.
Managing water woes and resources
For regional planners, the demand for water in North Texas is a persistent challenge.
According to planners, the region will still have a 1 million acre-feet annual deficit even if water conservation and reuse measures save more than 1 million acre-feet.
Development in formerly rural areas, like the Alliance area, which is now teeming with rail, aviation, and technological hubs, was endangered by a lack of water resources. Together with new retail establishments, dining options, and housing complexes, those enterprises helped the city expand into southern Denton County and had an economic impact of over $10.2 billion.
According to Conlin, throughout her time on the plan commission, she frequently issued warnings about the Alliance area’s intense growth.
“There’s no water up there, which is why that didn’t develop before,” she explained. I was talking about water all the time. They are now discovering that they are depleting aquifers.
By creating Independence Water, a system that employs collected rainwater stored in ponds and water treatment plant reuse for its AllianceTexas customers and neighboring towns, Hillwood addressed water challenges. According to Hillwood’s website, the initiative is still expanding, which benefits data centers and other high-usage clients.
Reducing the demand for electricity and water could help ease the burden on Texas’ power grid, which has suffered during periods of high usage, such the winter storm of 2021.
Officials in North Texas anticipate that millions of people will someday be able to use water from the contentious Marvin Nichols reservoir.
In August, it was decided to postpone the reservoir’s completion until 2070. The project’s proposal to flood almost 66,000 acres in Red River, Franklin, and Titus counties has angered landowners.
Eleven counties in North Texas could receive an extra 156 million gallons of water from another project called the Marty Leonard wetlands.According to the Tarrant Regional Water District, construction is scheduled to start in 2028 and be finished in 2032.
The Tarrant Regional Water District’s water resources engineering director, Zach Huff, stated that the organization is making plans in advance to ensure that water requirements don’t become a limitation.
Business development
Hundreds of acres of undeveloped land remain in Fort Worth despite the city’s rapid growth, which local and city officials hope will attract more business relocations.
“The city’s unique combination of a strong business climate, developable land, a talented workforce, and a can-do spirit makes Fort Worth desirable to companies,” said Robert Allen, president and CEO of the Fort Worth Economic Development Partnership.
“We are making a lot of effort to develop Fort Worth’s economy,” he stated. The difference is entirely due to the individuals here.
The city’s recent designation as Texas’s capital for defense and aviation is an example of this trend.
The city is home to Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth, where employees of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics construct the F-35 stealth fighter plane. This winter, Bell, a Textron subsidiary, said that it is constructing a factory worth over $600 million for the U.S. Army’s Future Long Range Assault Aircraft.
According to Allen, important sectors supporting growth include the creation of movies and television shows, healthcare, energy, and transportation.
The largest production studio in the state will help Fort Worth’s growing film and television production business. Together with Hillwood and Paramount Television, Taylor Sheridan, the creator of the popular TV series Yellowstone and Landman, brought major projects to a 450,000-square-foot facility in the AllianceTexas development.
The main health systems in Fort Worth are growing with new facilities and services to accommodate the demands of an increasing population. As more people move into the city, projects for Texas Health Resources, Cook Children’s Health Care System, JPS Health Network, Medical City Healthcare, Moncrief Cancer Institute, and Baylor Scott & White Health will expand the city’s medical capabilities.
For instance, Cook Children’s Medical Center is preparing the biggest expansion in its 107-year existence with the $1 billion construction of a new 760,000-square-foot West Tower.
Meanwhile, a $800 million bond package that voters approved in 2018 supports JPS Health Network’s master facilities plan. A medical home, mental emergency center, medical outpatient building, pavilion extension, and a new hospital are among the new amenities that are detailed in the design.
More jobs and possibilities will be created by business expansion. Siemens, a multinational technology company, unveiled a new $190 million electrical equipment manufacturing plant in March. By 2026, this facility is estimated to provide 800 new employment.
888 jobs will be created by the city’s acquisition of two $687 million Wistron facilities this summer, which will produce artificial intelligence chips.
The Fort Worth Economic Development Partnership claimed to have raised over $2 billion in capital investment in just two years. This includes at least 5,000 new jobs and more than 20 company expansions or relocations.
Transportation challenges
Fort Worth, which has over 499,385 employees aged 16 and over, ranked No. 10 in Forbes’ Hardest Commutes in the U.S. study with an average commute time of 26.8 minutes, indicating that commutes are getting longer for commuters.
Alan Blaylock, a member of the city council for the area, is constantly concerned about the need to enlarge and improve roadways in north Fort Worth to handle the thousands of people coming into communities surrounding the tiny town of Haslet.
“That’s my primary focus in my district, to be honest,” he remarked.
Highway projects, such the $174 million reconstruction of the eastern loop of Interstate 820, are planned or under progress to handle growth. An urban rail system that leaves from downtown is suggested, and Trinity Metro authorities hope to extend their TEXRail passenger rail service into the Medical District.
According to Mayor Mattie Parker, a strong emphasis on infrastructure, travel dependability, and mobility options will be essential to our city’s success and competitiveness as our region grows over the next 25 years.
As we plan for historic growth throughout our city, region, and state long into the future, she said, the Moving a Million master plan of the city of Fort Worth, along with initiatives and collaborations with the Texas Department of Transportation, North Central Texas Council of Governments, Trinity Metro, and others, will be essential.
Public transportation will play an increasingly important role in the city s vibrant economic growth story, Trinity Metro President and CEO Rich Andreski said.
With the abundant growth, we have data that shows the public is growing weary of traffic congestion and wants more rail options, he said. Trinity Metro is developing solutions to support the emerging Texas A&M Innovation District, link local neighborhoods and entertainment districts, and provide better regional transit connections. Urban rail, express bus services, automated vehicles and other innovative ideas are all on the table.
Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments, is advocating for denser housing and more mixed-use developments in urban cores to ease traffic woes.
Morris stated that as regional officials move forward with their Transit 2.0 initiative, roads and transit operations should complement one another. He said that the most recent U.S. census data is additional evidence of the need for a comprehensive transportation system that gives North Texans a choice of how to travel to work, school, medical appointments, and important points of interest.
Advancements in technology will lead to more autonomous vehicles on the road as well as new options such as flying taxis, which Fort Worth airport officials are planning for. Morris has advocated for ahigh-speed rail routefrom downtown Fort Worth and Arlington to connect with a Dallas-to-Houston route proposed by Texas Central Railway, led by Fort Worth investorJohn Kleinheinz.
Population growth
Rampant sprawl across North Texas will lead to a metro population of more than 12 million residents by 2050, according to projections from the North Central Texas Council of Governments.
Along with the strain on transportation is addressing housing, education and other necessities that impact residents quality of life.
The Fort Worth areaneeds about 40,000 housing units, economist Ray Perryman said at the 2025 Live Local Housing Summit. Those needs resulted from about 20 years of perfect storms that included the 2008 Great Recession and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.
The city s 2026 bond program is expected to include$840 millionin city infrastructure projects. Some advocates want affordable housing efforts included since Fort Worth is the largest city in Texas without a housing proposition in its bond.
The city s western side is also experiencing rapid growth.
Fort Worth s neighbor, the Parker County city of Aledo, currently home to more than 5,800 residents, will be the population center of the Fort Worth-Dallas area by 2100, Parker has said. Growth in that area includes new housing developments, and the University of Texas at Arlington will build itsUTA Westcampus on 51 acres near the merger of Interstates 30 and 20 by Aledo.
Jennifer Cowley, president of UTA, said the population increases in the area highlight new opportunities for higher education growth.
Fort Worth will be the largest city in Parker County, she said.
UTA is among college campuses expanding across the area as city leaders aim to meet thegrowing demand for a talented workforce. Nearby states are recruiting top students from Texas, leading to brain drain in the state, higher education officials said.
Addressing the workforce shortage and adding to the Fort Worth skyline is the new eight-story, $185 millionTexas A&M-Fort Worthcampus that will open in 2026. It will house the law school as well as various programs and state agencies associated with A&M.
From her cinematic views at Scenery Hill in Meadowbrook, Conlin has been amazed by the evolving skyline and growth.
While her quiet, eastside neighborhood endures, she worries growth in the northern, western and southwestern sides has hampered other areas such as the declining East Lancaster Avenue corridor.
Conlin, who grew up during the Great Depression, said she believes Fort Worth s growth is simply too rapid.
I hope the city can solve these issues, she said. I hope they leave it a better place.
Environment reporter Nicole Lopez contributed reporting.
Eric E. Garcia is a senior business reporter at the Fort Worth Report. Contact him [email protected].
Disclosure: Hillwood and the University of Texas at Arlington have been financial supporters of the Fort Worth Report. News decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policyhere.
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