Morning Roundup: The mighty metro area edition

Good morning, Houston. Do you feel more metropolitan? Or bigger, maybe? According to estimates released by the Census Bureau yesterday, the influx of hurricane evacuees has made the Houston metro area the country's sixth largest. The Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown metropolitan area now has an estimated 5,483,857 residents, which puts it ahead of Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Miami Beach but still behind the New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth and Philadelphia metro areas. Another population fact: Harris County had the second-largest numeric increase of any county between 2000 and 2006, with 486,000 new residents; at 3.9 million people, Harris County is the country's third most populous.

>> Wrecker driver turns himself in: Sergio Jimenez Gonzalez, the Safe Clear wrecker driver involved in the wreck that killed an elderly couple in October, surrendered in court yesterday morning — but his attorney maintains that he did nothing wrong. Authorities say Gonzalez was speeding along Wallisville Road on Oct. 18 when he broadsided Leon and Maurine Roberson; earlier this week, an assistant Harris County DA said Gonzalez had cocaine in his system at the time of the crash. Judge Caprice Cosper ordered Gonzalez, who has been charged with manslaughter, to be held in the Harris County Jail without bond until his next court appearance Tuesday.

>> OSHA change in wake of BP explosion?: Two years after the explosion that killed 15 people at BP's Texas City refinery, U.S. House members called for changes in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency charged with protecting workers. According to a government report issued earlier this week, lax OSHA oversight contributed to the explosion; House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) said his group will look into "the Bush administration's transformation of OSHA from a law enforcement organization into a so-called voluntary compliance organization."

>> Controlled growth?: How many apartments are too many? That's the question around Houston, apparently: According to KHOU, City Councilman Peter Brown is backing neighborhood planning guidelines that could curb the overdevelopment of rental units. "It's like too much of something is a bad thing; that's what we got out in Gulfton or these cookie cutter look-alike subdivisions," Brown said. "We want mixed communities, including a mix of income." Will it work, though? Some area cities, including Sugar Land, limit the number of apartments in a square mile, but Houston developers say the lack of regulation makes them able to better react to market trends and revitalize neighborhoods. Y'know, like this.

>> This weekend's weather: Looks like things won't change much before Monday. It should be cloudy this morning, becoming partly sunny through the afternoon with a high near 79. Tonight, look for a low around 66; on Saturday and Sunday, expect a chance of showers with highs in the upper 70s and lows in the mid 60s.

More headlines after the jump ...