Instead of serving as bedroom communities for a central city, places like Plano, Frisco, Irving and McKinney embraced their spot in the sprawl and became economic and political power centers in their own right.
Corporate headquarters followed. So did jobs, investment and influence.
North Texas has mastered the master-planned community and the corporate campus, blending car-centric lifestyles, highly regarded schools and suburban clout.
“First you grow into an area and then you want your space,” LaRosiliere said. “That was always that American dream, right? Get yourself home ownership, have the fence and family, and the dog. City life does not offer you that.”
That space, abundant north of Dallas and stretching toward the Red River, is in high demand.
Collin County added more people between 2024 and 2025 than all but one other county in the nation, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, while Dallas County shrank. Four of the country’s five fastest-growing cities with populations of at least 20,000 were in Collin County.
North Texas became one of the clearest examples of the nation’s evolution as jobs, housing and opportunity moved beyond the urban core. Business leaders and local governments pursued a shared strategy of growth, while expanding the region’s economic footprint.
The pattern pioneered here has spread. Fast-growing metropolitan areas from Atlanta to Phoenix revolve around thriving suburbs that now rival many downtowns as centers of commerce and culture.
LaRosiliere, who describes himself as “Haitian-born, Harlem-raised, Plano prospered,” said Plano offered him, like generations of newcomers, a place where “the American dream can actually occur.”
Dallas’ suburbs keep spilling north, leading the way for modern American growth.