You probably think you've seen every kind of town Texas has to offer. We have the dusty oil patches, the sprawling Houston suburbs, and those tiny Hill Country spots where the only traffic is a stray goat. But things just changed. Hard.
As of May 2024, the title for the newest city in Texas officially belongs to Starbase.
Honestly, it sounds like something out of a low-budget sci-fi flick. But if you drive about 25 miles east of Brownsville, right to the literal edge of the United States, it’s very real. It isn't just a corporate campus anymore. It’s a Type C municipality.
The vote wasn't even close. 212 to 6. When you realize most of the residents are literally building rockets for a living, those numbers start to make sense.
Why Starbase even became a city
Most people assume this was just a vanity project for Elon Musk. While he certainly tweeted about it enough, the reality is a lot more bureaucratic and boring, which is usually how Texas history actually happens.
For years, the area was just an unincorporated chunk of Cameron County called Boca Chica. It had a few houses, a lot of sand, and a lot of mosquitoes. Then SpaceX moved in. Suddenly, they were dealing with road closures, utility needs, and a population of engineers who needed somewhere to live that wasn't a 45-minute commute away.
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By becoming a city, Starbase gains its own local government. That means a mayor—Bobby Peden, a SpaceX employee, won the first seat—and city commissioners.
They can now manage their own infrastructure. They can (controversially) close the local beach for launches more easily. They've basically created a company town for the 21st century. It's about 1.5 square miles of dirt, steel, and very high ambitions.
It’s not the only "new" town we've seen lately
Before Starbase took the crown, the conversation usually circled around Ellinger.
In 2020, residents in Ellinger decided they’d had enough of being just a "place" and wanted to be a "city." It’s a tiny spot between Houston and San Antonio with a population of about 200 people. They even held a ribbon-cutting for their city hall back in 2022.
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But Starbase is a different beast entirely.
Where Ellinger incorporated to preserve its quiet, rural identity, Starbase incorporated to explode. Musk has talked about growing the population to thousands. He wants a futuristic hub. Whether the local ecosystem can handle that is a point of massive debate among environmentalists who have spent years fighting to protect the nearby wildlife refuge.
The weirdness of Texas incorporation laws
Texas makes it surprisingly easy—and simultaneously very difficult—to start a city. You need a petition. You need a specific number of voters. You need a boundary that doesn't step on anyone else's toes.
- Type C Municipalities: This is what Starbase is. It’s for smaller populations, usually between 201 and 5,000 residents.
- The Power of the Vote: In Starbase's case, having a population made up almost entirely of employees meant the "city" was basically guaranteed to happen once it hit the ballot.
- Annexation Shields: Many small Texas towns, like Weston Lakes back in 2008, incorporated specifically so bigger cities couldn't gobble them up.
If you look at the map, Starbase is tucked into a corner where no other city was ever going to reach. It was the ultimate "blank slate" for a tech billionaire.
Is it actually a city or just a launchpad?
If you visit, don't expect a Main Street with a barbershop and a local diner. Not yet, anyway.
It’s a construction site. It’s a graveyard of stainless steel rocket prototypes. It’s a gated community of Airstreams and prefab houses.
Critics, including many in the Rio Grande Valley, argue that "City of Starbase" is a bit of a stretch. They see it as a way for a private corporation to bypass county regulations. On the flip side, the people living there—the actual voters—say they need the autonomy to build a community that reflects the weird, high-intensity life of space exploration.
What most people get wrong about the "Newest City" title
The media loves to act like a new city just appears out of thin air. In Texas, these places usually have long, complicated histories before the paperwork is filed.
Boca Chica had residents long before the rockets arrived. There were families who had fishing cabins there for generations. For them, the "newest city" doesn't feel like a birth; it feels like an ending.
The conflict between the "Old Texas" of the coastal marshes and the "New Texas" of the space race is written into every permit Starbase files. It's a tension you'll find in almost every newly incorporated area in the state. Growth is the Texas religion, but it always comes at a price.
Actionable Insights for Following the Starbase Story
If you're keeping an eye on how the newest city in Texas develops, here is what actually matters over the next 12 months:
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- Watch the Tax Revenue: Now that they are a city, they can collect certain taxes. How that money is spent on "public" infrastructure versus SpaceX-specific needs will be the first test of their governance.
- Monitor the Beach Access: The biggest friction point is Boca Chica Beach. As a city, Starbase has more leverage over how that public land is managed.
- Look for Snailbrook: Keep your ears open for "Snailbrook" in Bastrop County. That’s another Musk-related project that has been rumored to be heading toward incorporation. If it does, Starbase won't be the newest city for long.
- Check the Census Updates: As of now, the official population is tiny. If the city hits its goal of 3,500 residents, it will shift from a Type C to a Type A or B municipality, which brings a whole new set of rules.
Texas is growing faster than almost any other state. We aren't just building houses; we are literally drawing new lines on the map. Starbase is just the most extreme example of what happens when the frontier spirit meets a massive bank account.
Keep an eye on the Cameron County property records. That's where the real story of the newest city in Texas is being written, one acre at a time.