Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Services in University Park, TX

University Park grew up around Southern Methodist University, which was chartered in 1911 and opened in 1915 on what was then rural Dallas County land; the young university supplied water and utilities to the homes of its faculty and staff.

When SMU could no longer afford to serve the growing neighborhood and Dallas and Highland Park both refused to annex it, voters incorporated University Park on April 24, 1924, by a 5-to-1 margin - the new city covered 515 acres with 380 homes and 1,200 residents.

Together with neighboring Highland Park, University Park forms the Park Cities, an affluent enclave completely surrounded by Dallas about five miles north of downtown.

Many University Park streets are named for famous universities, including Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Dartmouth, Purdue, Tulane, Amherst, and Vassar.

The 2020 census counted 24,401 residents in University Park, packed into just 3.69 square miles - a density of more than 6,800 people per square mile that makes it one of the most densely populated cities in Texas.

Census Bureau survey figures for 2020-2024 put University Park at about 6,964 households with an owner-occupancy rate of 83.2% and a median owner-occupied home value of about $1.86 million, among the highest in the nation.

SMU remains the city's anchor institution, enrolling about 12,500 students on its 234-acre campus in fall 2025.

University Park grew explosively in its first decades, from 4,200 residents in 1930 to 23,823 by 1950, and has stayed roughly the same size ever since because it is fully built out.

TSHA notes the city held about 640 acres of parks, parkways, schools, and other open space as of 2021, a large share for such a small city.