When Suzanne D’Amico moved to Celina, Texas, an hour north of Dallas, there was a grocery store, longhorn cattle down the road, and no lights on the horizon at night. Farmers in coveralls gathered for morning coffee, teenagers thronged local pizzerias after Friday night football games, and neighbors prayed together at church on Sunday.
“It felt like we were on another planet,” said D’Amico, who has lived in Celina, where she raised her children, for nearly 30 years. “We were not only out of town, we were completely removed from anything we considered remotely civilized at the time.”
But D’Amico’s slice of small-town America is quickly disappearing. Like rural communities across the country, Celina is seeing a housing boom that will make it America’s fastest-growing city in 2023. Now pastures have been replaced by densely packed houses, golf carts cruise around planned communities where tractors once plowed and replaced local businesses. with big box chains.
While suburban sprawl is nothing new, rising home prices over the past few years have fueled the trend, pushing homebuyers across the country from urban centers to areas like Celina where land is cheaper and more plentiful, and local barriers to buying a home. developers are lower.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the rural population is increasing for the first time in at least a decade since the pandemic began. analysis found. Among the nation’s 500 fastest-growing cities, the number more than 30 miles from the city center grew by 26% between 2019 and 2023. according to to census figures.
Celina is at the forefront of this trend. The population grew by 27% in 2023, and the city grew from about 7,000 residents in the past decade to more than 43,000 last year. according to To census data. With more than 200 people moving there every week, the city will have more than 100,000 residents by 2029.
“Affordability is a big factor for families moving in right now,” said Celina Mayor Ryan Tubbs, who said the city is attracting people from high-priced parts of Dallas as well as more expensive states like California. “The amount of house you can get goes a long way.”
For newcomers to Celina, about 40 miles north of Dallas, a development boom has provided a refuge from rising housing prices and allowed newcomers to get the suburban lifestyle they’re looking for at a lower price than they could find elsewhere. But for some long-term residents, migration means a loss of their sense of community, higher costs and threats to their livelihoods.
A shortage of undeveloped land in the Dallas area has pushed developers further north into Collin County, which includes Celina and other fast-growing communities like Princeton, Prosper and Anna. Homebuilders are selling 2,000-square-foot homes for $400,000 to $500,000, compared to $700,000 to $1,000,000 for a similar home in suburbs closer to downtown Dallas, said Bryan Swindell, president of PulteGroup’s Dallas division.
“Southern Collin County is getting really, really, really expensive. Places like Frisco, McKinney don’t have the bigger lots, so builders started working up north,” Swindell said. “When a lot goes on the market, there are 10 builders and builders making offers.”
Most of the new developments being built are master-planned communities with more than 1,000 tightly packed homes, making the construction process more cost-effective for developers. Many of the communities have unique amenities such as pools, parks, bike paths, playgrounds, and in some cases, their own school.
Big box retailers and chain stores are following the migration. The town will get its first Walmart and Costco in the coming months, and its second Starbucks last year.
As Celina races to keep pace with its growth, nearby Princeton, Texas, the nation’s third-fastest growing city, hold on all new housing developments in September to expand the city’s water and road infrastructure and create the necessary police force.
‘It’s happening’
For LaCinda Russell, growth has resulted in loss. His family has lived near Celina for three generations, but after home prices in the area have risen more than 50% over the past five years, he never expected to be able to afford a home there. She lives with her best friend in a house her friend’s family built more than two decades ago—in what now feels like an island of dating in a sea of change.
Outside his window, a large faucet taps into a dry well that he expects will become a unit after the old woman who owned it for decades dies. The town recently lost a popular snow cone and burger joint in the town square, along with a pizzeria where classmates gather after football games.
“I’ve seen businesses come and go. I’ve seen people come and go,” Russell said. “Sentimentality dies when you can’t sustain that lifestyle, and that’s a lot of what we’re seeing here. People who have owned land here for hundreds of years have to let it go.”
This growth also threatened those trying to cash in on the country’s best land for farming and grazing. According to the USDA, Collin County lost 115,000 acres of cropland between 2012 and 2022, and the number of farms with more than 500 acres nearly halved during that time. data. Nationwide, country lost During that period, 35 million hectares of cultivated land.
“North Texas is some of the most fertile land in the country, so that’s where Dallas is located and we’re building houses and structures on top of it,” said Kelcey Casper, a sixth-generation rancher whose family has been in the Collin area since the 1860s. “They’re not buying more land so eventually if we keep building like we are, there won’t be any land for ag production. We will have to rely on someone else for our food. I think it’s a really scary future.”
Casper currently raises cattle and raises hay about 30 miles east of Celina, but he fears the growth there will soon come to his community and threaten his ability to continue the family tradition. Most farmers and ranchers in the area have to lease their land from investors or developers who have bought the properties over the past decade.
“I intend to live here as long as I can, but I won’t always be able to do cattle and farm work here because property values are going up,” Casper said. “It’s still hard to make a living here because the land is going away.”
But that loss is gain for newcomers like Jasmine Hughes. She is among those flocking to the region in search of a better life for herself and her six children. When she lived in Dallas, the rent for a two-bedroom apartment was $1,900 a month, and she had trouble finding something in her price range with more space. Now he rents a three-bedroom house for $2,500 a month in a sprawling subdivision with better schools and more open space.
“I needed something more affordable,” said Hughes, who moved to the area last year. “That’s why we moved here. It is more realistic to enter a house with three or four rooms so that I and my children can all sleep and live comfortably.”
Last year, a Starbucks, McDonald’s, car wash and dentist office were added on the main road outside his subdivision. She sees this growth as a professional opportunity — she runs a daycare she hopes to expand and has started teaching fitness classes.
“I feel excited about it, I just see a lot of opportunity for me and my family,” Hughes said. “I hear some people around here don’t want Celina to change that much, I get that, but it’s happening.”
Local officials see no slowdown in growth, which poses a number of logistical challenges. The city is proposing $757 million over the next five years for projects including new parks, water infrastructure and an emergency dispatch center. The school district plans to add one to two new elementary schools each year for the foreseeable future.
Keeping Selina relatively affordable has also been a challenge for local officials, with a typical home currently selling for around $550,000. As land prices rise in Celina, builders like Plute’s Swindell are looking further north to build homes in the $300,000 price range.
‘Mixed Blessing’
Luke Thigpen moved to Celina in 2019 is renting while trying to save up to start a church and buy a house for about $400,000. But it was difficult as home prices continued to rise year after year.
He sees growth as an opportunity, especially when it comes to expanding his congregation, but he worries about the strain a wave of newcomers could create in a community known for its strong tradition of Christian values.
“People see diversity coming and automatically raise their guard. They want to protect what they consider to be good values in life, and that’s understandable,” Thigpen said. “You have other cultures, and it’s just understanding that some people see the world differently, some people celebrate life differently, and you have to make room for that.”
For D’Amico, after nearly three decades in Celina, he’s seen both the positives and negatives of growth. Her husband’s construction business flourished and the value of the land they bought increased over the years.
“We’ve seen full fields of five-foot-tall sunflowers, full winter wheat, tall corn fields, and now it’s hard to see it go,” he said. “My husband is a builder, so it’s kind of a mixed blessing for us, but I hate to see the fields go.”
A 2,500-acre farm just down the road from his home was recently sold to a developer who plans to build thousands of apartments. A highway will soon cut through the open space 500 yards from his back fence.
“I know it’s going to kill my silence, the quiet around my house,” she said. “I have 27 years, so I can’t complain, but now it’s very precious to me.”