The lesson for Houston from places like Atlanta is that, eventually, the jobs, water lines, and sewer systems migrate to the exurbs where many people want to live. Maybe that will eventually happen in Houston.
That’s been happening in Houston for a long time. I don’t actually live in Houston but we all say we’re from Houston. We do live in Harris County. As a side note, part of the Houston City Limits is in Ft. Bend County to the south. I don’t know how that happened.
In Texas we have what’s called Municiple Utility Districts that are taxing entities. Developers sell bonds to pay for a water treatment plant and the home owner pays a monthly bill PLUS taxes until the bonds are paid off. That usually takes a few decades. So, if you live outside the city limits you more than likely pay MUD taxes. (People who move here from out of state freak out when they learn they have “MUD” water.) The up side to living in a MUD is the city is NOT going to annex you until those bonds are paid off.
A few years ago Houston annexed an area NE of the city called Kingwood. The MUD bonds had been paid off. The people tried to fight it but if a city wants to annex an area so they can collect taxes there’s nothing that can be done to stop it.
They say a hundred thousand people are moving to Houston every year. Very few actually move to Houston. They’re moving to the surrounding suburbs.