Family-Friendly

2 Houston suburbs named best places to raise a family in Texas for 2021

Is your area good for kiddos?

Photo by MoMo Productions/Getty

If you're looking to start or add to your brood, you'll want to be located in these highly sought-after Texas areas. That's according to Niche, the online platform that helps people choose schools and places to live.

It just released its rankings of the Best Places to Raise a Family in Texas, and two Houston spots make the top five: The Woodlands is No. 3, followed by Cinco Ranch at No. 4.

The Woodlands also shows up on Niche's list of the Best Cities to Live, claiming the top spot in the nation.

Niche used weighted data to arrive at its rankings, with its own public school grades comprising the largest chunk of the score (20 percent).

Next is the percentage of residents who have received a bachelor’s degree or higher (12.5 percent), and the cost of living grade, violent and property crime rates, and a housing grade (which includes home values, property taxes, housing costs, and more) all weighing in at 10 percent.

Other factors such as family amenities (access to parks, libraries, and cultural events), outdoor activities, walkability, diversity, and an overall score determined by Niche users on a scale of 1-5.

The percentage of households with children under the age of 18 also figured in, obviously.

Rounding out the top five in Texas are the Austin town of Rollingwood at No. 1, Cottonwood Creek (a DFW neighborhood in Richardson that Niche, for some reason, identifies as Cotten Creek South) at No. 2, and Coppell, located in the northwest corner of Dallas, at No. 5.

This is the seventh consecutive year that Niche has produced these rankings, spanning 228 cities and 18,516 towns and neighborhoods.

reports families

good for the soul

Houston blooms as No. 3 best city for urban gardening in the U.S.

Photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash

Let's get gardening, Houston

Folks in the Bayou City have plenty of reasons to develop a green thumb: Houston has harvested new acclaim as the No. 3 best city in America for urban gardening in 2026.

Lawnstarter's annual report, "2026’s Best Cities for Urban Gardening," compared 500 U.S. cities based on their respective public access to community gardens, climate, the prevalence of nurseries and gardening supply stores, and the number of regional gardening clubs and online groups.

Atlanta topped the list as the No. 1 best U.S. city, followed by Miami (No. 2); St. Louis (No. 4); and Jacksonville, Florida (No. 5).

For the uninitiated, urban gardening is the practice of growing plants or food in densely populated areas. Local examples include Blackwood Skyfarm, which is the largest rooftop farm in Texas, or Urban Harvest's 160 affiliate gardens – but backyards, apartment balconies, and vacant lots could also fit the bill. Additionally, the Houston Parks and Recreation Department has an Urban Garden Program where residents can volunteer to help locate sections of local parks to turn into community gardens.

Houston was No. 1 nationally in the "supplies" rank, and Lawnstarter said the city is home to 253 landscaping equipment shops – the most in the U.S. – and the second-highest number of gardening stores (276) and nurseries (132). The city also earned a respectable No. 6 rank for its "support and interest" of urban gardening, meaning many residents are searching terms like "community gardens," "vertical gardening," and others.

Here's how the city fared in the remaining three categories:

No. 115 – Public access
No. 157 – Climate
No. 390 – Private access (based on average yard size for starting an at-home garden)

Cathy Walker, president of the American Community Gardening Association, offered some tips for first-time gardeners to help get their hands in the soil: choose only a few easy growing plants to start; learn which growing zone you're in to determine the plants that will thrive in your area; watch how much sunlight your garden space gets daily; and prioritize keeping soil healthy with compost and mulch.

Ecoregions are also helpful for understanding what plants will thrive. Whereas zones are about temperature, ecoregions are much more detailed groups. Planters can learn about their ecoregion and get personalized growing tips from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation in its new native planting app, Wild Thumb.

Starting your own garden can also have a financial benefit, the report suggested. However, up-front costs can get high in gardening, so gardeners might have to stick to it for a few seasons to see savings.

"With grocery prices projected to rise by 3.1 percent in 2026, there’s never been a better time to grow your own food," the report's author wrote. "Estimates show that growing a 600-square-foot plot for fruits and vegetables can save you around $600 in a single season."

The top 10 best cities for urban gardening in 2026 are:

No. 1 – Atlanta
No. 2 – Miami
No. 3 – Houston
No. 4 – St. Louis
No. 5 – Jacksonville, Florida
No. 6 – Orlando
No. 7 – Cincinnati
No. 8 – Fort Meyers, Florida
No. 9 – Tampa
No. 10 – Austin

urban gardening gardening houston