Houston Authority

Also known as: Houston Metro Authority

Houston is a middle-income large city of 2,328,253.

Houston, Texas — Reference Overview

Houston is, by a considerable margin, the largest city in Texas and the fourth-largest in the United States, which makes it slightly unusual that it sits in Fort Bend County rather than the county that shares its name. The city's population, according to Census ACS 5-Year 2024 data, stands at 2,328,253, a figure large enough that it occasionally surprises people who have been thinking of Houston as a regional hub rather than a metropolis of genuinely continental scale.

Population and Age

The median age in Houston is 34.4 years, per Census ACS 5-Year 2024, which places the city firmly in what demographers tend to call a "young professional" character. Of the total population, 545,317 residents are under 18, and 644,073 fall in the 18-to-34 bracket — together accounting for a substantial share of daily civic life. Children represent 23.4 percent of the population, a proportion that has direct implications for the city's 761 licensed childcare centers and its extensive school infrastructure.

The demographic composition, again per Census ACS 5-Year 2023, includes 1,013,768 Hispanic or Latino residents, 815,889 white residents, 527,115 Black residents, and 158,410 Asian residents, across 916,536 total households. Houston is, in this respect, one of the more genuinely diverse large cities in the country — not as a marketing claim, but as a straightforward description of who lives there.

Housing and Affordability

Houston's price-to-income ratio sits at 4.3, with rent consuming approximately 25.2 percent of median income, according to calculations derived from Census median income and home value data. The city is classified as not affordable under standard thresholds, though the interpretation is characterized as "moderate" — meaning it occupies the uncomfortable middle ground between cities where housing is a manageable expense and cities where it has become a defining crisis. For a metropolitan area of this size, a rent-to-income ratio just above 25 percent is, by national comparison, relatively restrained, though that observation offers limited comfort to households at the lower end of the income distribution.

Climate

Houston's climate is measured against the HOUSTON WILLIAM P HOBBY AP station, located 12.5 miles from the city center, per NOAA ACIS data. The average temperature is 72.8 degrees Fahrenheit annually, and the city receives 55.4 inches of precipitation per year — a figure that anyone who has driven through a Houston summer thunderstorm will find entirely plausible. The rainfall total places Houston well above the national average and has meaningful implications for infrastructure, drainage planning, and the frequency with which the city appears in federal flood-related discussions.

Broadband Infrastructure

According to FCC Broadband Data Collection figures as of June 2025, Houston achieves 100 percent coverage at the 25/3 Mbps threshold, 100 percent at 100/20 Mbps, and 100 percent at 250/25 Mbps across its 1,179,315 total units. Coverage at the 1,000/100 Mbps tier reaches 83.2 percent. For a city of this population, near-universal access at mid-tier speeds is notable, though the gap at gigabit service levels suggests that the highest-bandwidth infrastructure has not yet reached full geographic saturation.

Education

Houston is home to 63 colleges and universities, per NCES IPEDS 2022 data. Among the most prominent in terms of enrollment is Houston Community College, which according to College Scorecard data enrolls 40,503 students, charges in-state tuition of $2,040 and out-of-state tuition of $5,460, and reports a completion rate of 16.75 percent. That completion figure is worth pausing on: it reflects a pattern common to large open-access community colleges, where a significant share of students enroll for workforce training, certificate programs, or individual courses rather than degree completion, and where the standard completion metric captures only a portion of the institution's actual educational activity.

Civic and Cultural Infrastructure

Houston supports 82 arts organizations, per IRS Exempt Organizations data, including the Houston Symphony Endowment — an institution whose presence signals a level of cultural infrastructure that extends well beyond what most cities of any size maintain. There are 2,962 religious congregations registered in the city, and 62 civic service organizations, including a Zonta Club chapter and Texas 4-H affiliates, per the same IRS source.

Animal welfare infrastructure includes 18 registered rescue organizations, among them PUP SQUAD ANIMAL RESCUE, HTOWN PAWS ANIMAL RESCUE, and WEST HOUSTON ANIMAL RESCUE, per IRS Exempt Organizations data.

The city has 87 recorded attractions in proximity, including a butterfly garden 0.9 miles from the city center and the Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens at 1.4 miles, per ANA attraction data.

Air Quality Monitoring

The EPA AQI Annual Summary 2024 records no air quality monitoring station in Houston's county. This is an absence worth noting plainly: it means that localized air quality data for the area is not available through the standard federal monitoring network, and that residents or researchers seeking current air quality readings would need to consult regional or state-level sources rather than the EPA's county-level AQI summaries.

Financial Services

FDIC branch data lists multiple banking institutions operating within the city, including a First National Bank Texas branch at 11701 S Sam Houston Pkwy E and a Capital One, National Association branch, among others. The presence of major national and regional institutions reflects the city's role as a commercial center for the broader Gulf Coast region.

Municipal Governance

Houston operates under a formal municipal code. The IRS Exempt Organizations Business Master File identifies the UNITED STATES JUNIOR CHAMBER OF COMMERCE as a registered civic organization operating in the city. The municipal code is accessible through Municode at https://library.municode.com/tx/south_houston.

Further Reading

• U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates — data.census.gov
• Federal Communications Commission, Broadband Data Collection (BDC) June 2025 — fcc.gov
• National Center for Education Statistics, IPEDS Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System 2022 — nces.ed.gov/ccd/
• FEMA, Disaster Declarations Summary — fema.gov/disaster/declarations