calling texas home
Growing Houston suburb tops America's best places for young families
When starting a family, there's a lot to consider, and a new study might help answer one of the biggest questions: Where should we live?
Apartment List analyzed more than 500 U.S. cities to find the best places for young families in 2019. The site considered safety, rent affordability, education quality (high school graduation rates among public schools), and child friendliness, ultimately naming League City to the No. 8 spot on the list.
League City shines with an A-plus rating (weighted score of 90.945). The growing Houston suburb performs best in child friendliness (97.6), rent affordability (92.6), and its high school graduation rate (91.4), and shows well with its school safety score (87.3).
In all, four of the top 10 spots go to Texas cities, with Flower Mound in Dallas-Fort Worth at No. 4; Cedar Park at No. 7; and Mansfield, also in DFW, at No. 9 joining League City.
Texas' largest cities, however, don't look so hot compared to the other 500-plus studied, scoring especially poorly in safety and high school graduation rates. Houston ranks No. 400, with a weighted score of 37.55 and a C, and San Antonio isn't that far off, ranking No. 450, with a score of 31.91 and a C. Dallas ranks No. 205, with a score of 54.86 and a B, and Fort Worth, also earning a B, lands further down the list with its No. 240 ranking and score of 51.82. In between them is Austin, No. 208, with a score of 54.62 and a B.
But those rankings shift significantly in a second list that compares the 50 largest cities in the country, for families only eyeing urban areas. Four Texas cities place in the top 10 of that list, too: El Paso (No. 2), Dallas (No. 5), Austin (No. 6), and Fort Worth (No. 8).
On the overall list, the top two spots go to Fishers and Carmel, Indiana. On the other end of the spectrum, Santa Cruz, California, ranks worst, with abysmal scores for high school graduation rate, safety, rent affordability, and child friendliness.
