Big-league ’burbs
Houston suburb ranks among top 50 places to live, new survey says
The Houston suburb of Atascocita is among the country's top 50 places to live, a new ranking shows.
The ranking, created by the 24/7 Wall St. website, is based on an index of more than three dozen socioeconomic measures, including median home value, poverty rate, and adults’ education level.
The north Harris County suburb that borders Lake Houston ranks No. 21 on the list. Two fast-growing Dallas suburbs, Flower Mound (No. 13) and Frisco (No. 16), are the only other Texas cities in the ranking.
To come up with the list, 24/7 Wall St. sifted through data for nearly 600 U.S. cities that had at least 65,000 residents in 2016.
Atascocita made the list because its residents are well-educated (nearly 40 percent have at least a bachelor's degree; far greater than the national average) and the poverty rate is low (at only 4.2%, it's one of the lowest of any U.S. city).
It's also relatively affordable, as the median home value is $182,000 and the typical area home costs only 1.9 times the median household income in the area. Nationwide, the median home value is 3.6 times the median household income.
The socioeconomic figures for both Flower Mound and Frisco are also impressive.
For instance, Flower Mound’s median home value ($344,300) ranks in the top 25 percent of cities, the percentage of adults with at least a bachelor’s degree (61.3 percent) ranks in the top 10 percent, and the poverty rate (4.7 percent) ranks in the bottom 10 percent.
“After adjusting for the area’s low cost of living, the median income in Flower Mound is the highest of any U.S. city,” 24/7 Wall St. says.
Frisco boasts equally strong numbers. For instance, the city’s median home value ($369,900) ranks in the top 25 percent of cities, the percentage of adults with at least a bachelor’s degree (65.9 percent) ranks in the top 10 percent, and the poverty rate (4.3 percent) ranks in the bottom 10 percent.
“Frisco is ... one of the wealthiest cities in the country and has one of the lowest costs of living,” 24/7 Wall St. says.
