What is Dallas to Two Million?
A research, writing, and design project about how a city already on its land can choose to keep being one.
The project
Dallas to Two Million (D2M) is a research, writing, and design project arguing that Dallas should plan, zone, and build for a population of 2,000,000 by 2060 through infill housing on the city's existing land, with no annexation. The argument is fiscal, demographic, and political. It is built on primary-source data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Texas Demographic Center, the City of Dallas's own audited financial reports, the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System's most recent actuarial valuation, and the published work of J.H. Cullum Clark of the Bush Institute. The conclusions are the author's.
Why now
The City of Dallas has been losing population since 2018; it peaked at 1.344 million residents in 2019 and has shrunk every year since. The City Council approved a $11.2 billion thirty-year pension restoration plan in December 2025 against a population that is no longer fully there. Dallas County (of which the city is roughly half) is also now shrinking. Its net domestic out-migration in 2024–25 ranked second-worst of any large county in America, behind only Miami-Dade.
The first-ring suburbs that grew in the 1970s (Richardson, Carrollton, Irving) are now beginning the same demographic decline on a delay. The math is moving against Dallas in real time, and only growth reverses it. The legal preconditions for that growth, Texas Senate Bills 15 and 840, were signed into law in 2025 and take effect now.
Who built this
The site is written by Kirk Presley, a Dallas resident. The data, charts, and design were built in collaboration with Claude (Anthropic). All data sources are listed in the footer; the working dossier is available on request. Any errors are the author's.
How to use it
Read the case for the full argument with charts. The Get Involved page lists ways to act. Source documents are linked inline throughout.