Best Places To Live In Texas

Some of you are probably asking, why would I want to live in Texas? And I certainly wouldn't blame you if that's what you think. After all, the state government (dominated by Republicans) has made a real mess of the state. The state has the lowest per capita funding for its schools, one of the highest dropout rates in the nation, the highest percentage of its citizens without health insurance, the largest number & percentage of people working at or below minimum wage, the highest rate of second teen pregnancies (and among the leaders in first teen pregnancies), has one of the most regressive tax systems in the nation, and produces more pollution than any other state (and all but six of the world's countries).

But in spite of all of that, people continue to move to Texas from other states. So i thought I would bring you this little article from Movoto Real Estate on the best places to live in Texas. They restricted their list to cities with a population of at least 10,000 people, which left them with a list of 242 Texas cities. They then rated each of those cities on these seven measurable criteria (rating each from 1 to 242 on each criteria):

Total amenities

Quality of life (cost of living, median home price, median rent, median household income, and student-to-teacher ratio)

Total crimes

Tax rates (sales tax and income tax)

Unemployment

Commute time

Weather (temperature and air quality)

Then then added the seven scores together, and divided by seven to get an average score. They then used that average score to rank all the cities (with the lowest score being the best). The chart above shows the top 25 Texas cities, along with their average score (and population).

You may notice that most of the cities on that list are small fairly rural communities -- and that may not appeal to you. After all, some people just like living in an urban area. So I took out all the cities from the list that had less than a population of 150,000. That left 17 Texas cities -- and they are included on the chart below (with their population and ranking).