Greg Abbott often seems to govern Texas as though it were a much smaller, less complicated place than it actually is. The more I have looked at the policies adopted during his time in office, the less I think this is simply about whether a particular policy is conservative or liberal. What I keep coming back to is a question of scale, modernization and whether the state is taking advantage of the tools that are available to it in 2026.
Texas is no longer simply a collection of small towns, ranches and rural communities connected by highways. It is the second-most populous state in the country, with more than 30 million residents. Between 2012 and 2022, Texas added nearly 3.9 million people, the largest population gain of any state. More than 90 percent of Texans now live in metropolitan or micropolitan counties, and the state's four largest metropolitan areas—Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio and Austin—account for more than two-thirds of the state's population. During that same decade, Austin grew by 32 percent, Dallas-Fort Worth by nearly 20 percent, Houston by nearly 19 percent and San Antonio by nearly 19 percent.
That matters because governing a state of this size and complexity requires more than simply scaling up the solutions that worked when communities were smaller. Texas now contains some of the country's largest metropolitan areas alongside remote rural communities, rapidly expanding suburbs, major universities, global corporations, enormous medical centers, technology companies and some of the most technologically sophisticated industries in the world. The state's own Comptroller has described the challenge plainly: Texas needs infrastructure capable of supporting 30 million and growing Texans, while recognizing that population growth is putting increasing pressure on transportation, water, energy, broadband and other systems.
Texas is certainly not a state that rejects technology. Abbott and state lawmakers have actively pursued semiconductor manufacturing, artificial intelligence, data centers, broadband expansion and advanced energy. Texas created its Broadband Development Office in 2021, and the state subsequently committed billions of dollars toward expanding broadband access. The state is also investing in advanced nuclear energy and grid reliability. The contradiction is that Texas can be extremely enthusiastic about bringing the technology economy into the state while still approaching many of its everyday governing problems through systems and processes that have changed very little in decades.
That distinction is important. This isn't an argument that Greg Abbott doesn't understand technology or that Texas doesn't use technology. Obviously it does. The question is whether the state is using technology merely as an addition to existing systems or whether it is allowing new technology, data and scientific knowledge to fundamentally change how those systems operate.
The difference can be seen in the state's approach to border security. Since Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in 2021, Texas has invested billions of dollars in border enforcement, including the construction of a state-funded border wall. By 2025, Texas had spent more than $3 billion on the project, while only a fraction of the planned miles had been completed. The wall has consisted of separate segments rather than a continuous barrier, in part because of the enormous geographic and property challenges involved in constructing one across Texas.
There is nothing inherently irrational about a physical barrier. A fence can be useful in particular locations, just as a door or security gate can be useful on a property. The question is whether building physical barriers across a vast and difficult landscape should be the centerpiece of a modern border-security strategy when technology allows governments to monitor enormous areas through drones, cameras, sensors, geographic information systems and other forms of surveillance and data analysis. A modern approach doesn't necessarily mean replacing every physical barrier with technology. It means using data to determine where a physical barrier is actually useful and using technology to cover the enormous areas where building one would be impractical, expensive or environmentally destructive.
The same issue comes up when we look at healthcare. Texas has some of the world's most advanced medical facilities, yet access to healthcare can look completely different depending on where a person lives. Rural communities have experienced hospital closures and reductions in services, leaving some residents with long drives to reach care. In a traditional system, when a local facility cannot provide a particular service, the solution is often to send the patient somewhere else. But technology has changed the meaning of what can be considered local healthcare. Telemedicine can connect rural clinicians with specialists in major medical centers. Remote monitoring can allow specialists to participate in a patient's care without being physically present. Electronic records allow information to move with the patient, while remote imaging and virtual intensive-care systems can extend expertise into smaller facilities.
None of that means a computer can replace an emergency room, a surgeon or a full-service hospital. It means that the choice doesn't always have to be between having a massive hospital nearby and having nothing. Technology can allow smaller facilities to provide services that previously required a patient to travel. When a rural hospital loses a specialist, for example, the question should not only be where the patient can find the next specialist. It should also include whether technology can bring some of that expertise to the community.
Education presents a similar problem, particularly in the debate over school vouchers. Texas' universal education savings account program, signed into law in 2025, gives eligible families public funds that can be used for private-school tuition and other approved educational expenses. There is a legitimate argument that families should have more choices in how their children are educated. In a relatively small community with several public schools and several private schools, a voucher could provide a family with a meaningful alternative.
But Texas is not one small community, and the availability of a theoretical choice does not necessarily mean a practical choice exists. A private school has to exist within a reasonable distance, have available space and offer a program that works for that particular child. Private schools are not required to accept every student who receives voucher eligibility. The state can provide money for a family to leave a public school, but money alone cannot create a private school where one doesn't exist or guarantee that a private school has the capacity to serve that student.
That is where the scale of Texas becomes important. A market-based solution assumes that a functioning market exists. In a small town, there may be enough schools for that model to work naturally. In a massive metropolitan area, the situation can be different again, with large school districts serving tens of thousands of students and enormous differences between neighborhoods. A rural community may have an entirely different set of options. Treating all three situations as though they have the same educational marketplace risks confusing the existence of a policy with the existence of meaningful choice.
There is also another possibility that gets less attention in the voucher debate: using technology to expand what an existing public school can offer. A school doesn't necessarily need to employ every specialist full-time if students can access specialized instruction remotely. Virtual tutoring, teletherapy, advanced online coursework, artificial-intelligence-assisted learning tools and shared digital resources can give smaller schools access to expertise they could never afford to maintain independently. That doesn't mean technology replaces teachers or that every child should learn through a screen. It means that the physical location of a school no longer has to determine the full universe of resources available to its students.
The same principle applies to voting, although this is an area where modernization has to be balanced carefully against security and public trust. Texas has moved toward systems that produce voter-verifiable paper records and has procedures for auditing election results. Those safeguards exist for good reasons. A physical record provides something that can be independently examined when electronic results are questioned.
The problem is not that Texas uses paper. The more interesting question is whether Texas has used technology to make voting substantially easier while maintaining those safeguards, or whether it has layered technology onto an already complicated process without fundamentally redesigning the experience for voters. Modernization shouldn't mean eliminating every physical component of a system simply because digital alternatives exist. It should mean asking whether each step is still necessary, whether it serves a clear purpose and whether newer technology can make the process more secure and accessible without adding unnecessary complexity.
Water is another example where Texas has made enormous investments while illustrating the difference between infrastructure and modernization. Texas faces a genuine and growing water challenge. The Texas Comptroller has projected that the state's population could increase from roughly 29 million in 2020 to 47 million by 2050, creating enormous additional demand for reliable water supplies. The state has responded with major investments in water infrastructure, including funding for new supplies, infrastructure repairs, conservation and other projects.
Those investments are necessary. Pipes have to be repaired. Water has to be transported. Communities need reliable supplies. But modern water management can go beyond simply building more infrastructure. Smart meters can identify unusual consumption. Sensors can detect leaks. Predictive analytics can identify infrastructure that is likely to fail before it does. Advanced irrigation can reduce agricultural consumption. Wastewater can be treated and reused. Real-time data can help communities understand where water is being lost rather than discovering the problem only after a shortage becomes an emergency.
In other words, the most modern water system isn't necessarily the one with the most pipes. It is the one that gets the most value out of every gallon moving through those pipes.
Energy presents the same tension on an even larger scale. Texas has experienced enormous population growth while also becoming a destination for energy-intensive industries, data centers and artificial-intelligence infrastructure. The Texas Comptroller has noted that population growth, extreme weather, electric vehicles, data centers, AI and cryptocurrency mining are all contributing to changing electricity demand.
That means Texas is dealing with an electricity system that is fundamentally different from the one it had decades ago. The traditional approach to increasing supply is familiar: build more generation and transmission. Texas certainly needs additional generation and transmission, but modern grid management can also involve battery storage, demand response, distributed generation, sophisticated forecasting and systems that allow electricity consumption to respond dynamically to grid conditions.
This is particularly important because Texas is simultaneously encouraging enormous new electricity users to locate here. Data centers can require amounts of electricity comparable to entire communities. If the state wants to become a global center for artificial intelligence and data infrastructure, it has to think beyond attracting the facilities themselves. It has to think about how those facilities interact with the grid, water supplies, roads, local communities and the people already living here.
The pattern that emerges across these issues isn't that physical infrastructure is bad or that technology is automatically good. It is that Texas often seems to treat modernization as something that happens alongside government rather than something that should fundamentally change government.
That is what I mean when I say Texas sometimes appears to be governed like a small town.
In a small town, if the local hospital can't provide a service, you send the patient to the bigger hospital. If the local school isn't meeting a student's needs, you try to find another school. If a road is congested, you build another road. If a border needs securing, you build a fence. If water is running short, you look for another source. If government needs information from you, you go to the government office and complete the process.
Those solutions make sense when the system is small enough that moving people and resources around is relatively simple.
But Texas is no longer operating at that scale. More than 90 percent of Texans live in metropolitan or micropolitan counties, and the state's four largest metropolitan areas alone contain more than 20 million people. The problems facing Houston are not necessarily the problems facing a small West Texas community, and the solution that works for a rural county may be completely impractical in Dallas or San Antonio.
The state has become too large and too technologically sophisticated for government to assume that the answer to every problem is simply to move people, build another physical structure or create another layer of rules.
There is a reason this matters beyond Greg Abbott. Abbott has been governor since 2015, but the underlying challenge is bigger than one politician. Texas has changed enormously during those years, and government has to keep changing as the population, economy and technology change. Abbott's administration has made some significant investments in modernization, particularly in broadband, energy and economic development, which makes the issue more complicated than simply labeling his administration technologically backward.
In fact, that complexity is what makes this argument worth having. Texas clearly knows how to use technology when technology is connected to economic growth. The state knows how to attract companies building the future. It knows how to invest in data centers, broadband, advanced energy and other emerging industries. What is less clear is whether the same appetite for innovation consistently extends to the systems through which ordinary Texans interact with their government.
Modernization should not mean chasing every new gadget or replacing proven systems simply because something newer exists. Sometimes the older solution really is better. A paper record may be more useful than a purely digital election record. A physical hospital will always be necessary for certain kinds of care. Roads will still have to be built. Water infrastructure will still have to be constructed. Teachers will still need classrooms.
But technology gives us the ability to do something that previous generations of government simply could not do: redesign systems around the individual rather than forcing individuals to conform to the limitations of the system.
That is the opportunity Texas should be taking more seriously.
A rural patient shouldn't necessarily have to travel hours simply because the specialist is somewhere else. A child shouldn't necessarily have to leave a school simply because that school cannot afford to employ every specialist. A border strategy shouldn't necessarily depend on putting steel into every mile of a landscape that stretches hundreds of miles. A water strategy shouldn't necessarily focus primarily on finding more water when technology can help us waste less of what we already have. An energy strategy shouldn't necessarily treat additional power generation as the only way to meet rising demand when technology can also change when and how we consume electricity.
And government itself should not be exempt from the technological transformation that it expects every other industry to embrace.
Texas has spent the last decade becoming larger, more urban, more economically powerful and more technologically sophisticated. The state's own data show just how dramatically that transformation has occurred. The population has grown by millions, the largest metropolitan areas have expanded at extraordinary rates, and new industries are creating demands that didn't exist when many of our governing systems were designed.
The challenge for Texas is no longer simply keeping up with growth. It is learning how to govern a state that has outgrown the assumptions of the past.
That doesn't require abandoning the physical world or pretending technology can solve everything. It requires something much simpler and, in some ways, much harder: a willingness to reconsider whether the way we've always done something is still the best way to do it.
The question Texas should be asking is not whether a policy sounds familiar or whether it worked somewhere else at some other time. It should be whether the policy actually works at Texas' current scale, for the people who live in the state today, using the knowledge and technology available to us today.
Texas has become a 21st-century state.
Our government should be willing to become one, too.
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