6 Houston-Area small cities shine on new list of best small cities in America

I'm just here to hate the city I live in.

 

I thought you loved Vidor?

 

Past tense.

 

You are past tense and are now frazzled?

 

Alief is the best side of all time!

 

good, we don't need them in 2nd ward lol

 

Cypress representin'.

 

Austin appears to be a magnet for groovy small Texas cities. Proof? Leander, Cedar Park, New Braunfels (SA will claim it, but ask me if I care! I love this old Texas town) Pflugerville, and Georgetown (another great Texas town).

 

I have a friend who went to Austin after high school and stayed there. While he would prefer to live in Austin proper, the houses are too expensive, so he went and bought a place in Cedar Park instead. Next best option with easy access to Austin.

 

Yeah, when I think "groovy" I think cookie cutter subdivisions and shopping centers. Although downtown Georgetown does have its charms.

 

Leander, Cedar Park, and Pflugerville certainly don't fit the description I lumped them in, and in retrospect, I should have said what they really represent. As for Georgetown, it wasn't always "ground zero" for newcomers to Austin who can afford to live in the surrounding area. We've lived in Austin since 1980 and visited the city and the Hill Country years before we moved here. Georgetown used to be a groovy little town, something Leander, Cedar Park, and Pflugerville never have been.

I wish your friend well. Clearly, tens of thousands of people must like it there. We're lucky to have had the same house in Austin for the last 30 years. Of course, according to my property tax bill (much of it "frozen" for years due to my advanced age, one good thing about it), the place is worth several times what we paid for it. That's Austin for you. It's "pricing out" much of what made the city so desirable during the '60's and '70's, which is a real bummer, no matter how long someone has lived here.

 

I think this is true for most major metros. I went to look at houses in Houston and was wondering why places like Fulshear were booming (its population tripled in the last 4 years, I think, and was ranked the fastest-growing small town in America at one point). It seems to just be people looking for affordable (well, at one point) housing and there was not much new housing in Katy and Sugar Land left at the time, so they just keep moving further out. Dallas is going through some similar things, but the more established burbs there have reasons to be booming (or have boomed). Allen, Frisco, Southlake, etc., are examples. When I ask sales reps in Fulshear what're some things happening or being built in the area : "I think we're getting an HEB, but they may have decided not to". Sweet. lol.

 

Glancing through that list:
https://wallethub.com/edu/best-worst-small-cities-to-live-in/16581
It looks like almost every suburb of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metro area is on it.

 

That's because Htown suburbs ar often times unincorporated so "who really knows". Meanwhile DFW is full of suburbs with established boundaries and decades-long city planning to keep thing organized

 

I also want to add I don't know if WalletHub lists are all that reliable. I usually take their lists with a grain of salt. In the past they've stated that McKinney, Tx, I believe, was the #1 place to live in the US or something a few years ago. lol. Sure.

I need to look at how they determine "affordability" on this list, too. I think they have Southlake as being more "affordable" than Little Elm which, at least by my definition, is nuts.

 

If Cypress was an actual city I'm sure it'd make it on the list. One of the few problems with the Houston area is the fact most of its suburbs are not in actual cities, just floating in no man's land.

 

If "Cypress was an actual city"

I love it

 

Delete.