HOUSTON’S HOLD ON NUMBER 4 2,257,926 people now live within the incorporated limits of the City of Houston, according to estimates released by the Census Bureau yesterday. The “incorporated limits” standard means Houston can still claim to be the nation’s fourth largest “city” (after New York, L.A., and Chicago) — even though Dallas and Philadelphia both boast larger regional populations. But the new numbers, which reflect a population increase of 14.4 percent from 2000 to 2009, are not 2010 Census population counts. They’re extrapolations from 10-year-old data, updated with adjustments from legal boundary changes, building permits, and county population estimates. Numbers from the 2010 Census won’t be widely available until April 2011. [U.S. Census Bureau]