(NEXSTAR) — One thing Texans love is Texas. There’s no end to the amount of cities and towns in the Lone Star State that have everything a resident could possibly need. But not every area is built equally.
Recently, consumer housing news outlet RentCafe analyzed data on 139 U.S. metro areas and ranked them across 17 different metrics — comprising cost of living, location/community and quality of life — to determine America’s most “livable” cities.
While no Texas city even appears on the national ranking until no. 72, the Lone Star State has a handful of metros that made the cut. Here’s a look at the Texas cities that fared fairly well.
- Dallas (72nd) — Received favorable scores in Cost of Living (-1 point less than the national average), a healthy food environment/access (score of 8 out of 10) and a relatively low percentage of severe housing problems (14.3%).
- Killeen (106th) — Favorable scores in Cost of Living (-4 points less than the national average), share of residents with access to exercise opportunities (64.3%) and a high number of higher educated residents (68.3%)
- Austin (109th) — A surprisingly favorable score in Cost of Living (-4 points less than the national average) helps boost Texas’ capital in the rankings, as does decent scores in healthy food access (8 out of 10), and an income growth rate of 8.1% (the top-scoring city overall is only 2 points higher in this metric)
When it comes to the national ranking, Portland, Maine, takes RentCafe’s top spot for most livable metro. With a population of only 540,718, Portland boasts a low unemployment rate (3.4%), low numbers of residents who are uninsured (6.4%) and a relatively low poverty rate (7.8%).
Despite the higher rankings above, a few Texas cities unfortunately also rounded out the very end of RentCafe’s rankings.
| Rank | City | Uninsured residents | Severe housing problems | Entertainment/recreation venues per 10K residents |
| 137 | Brownsville | 30.1% | 21.8% | 1 |
| 138 | El Paso | 26.4% | 22.1% | 2 |
| 139 | McAllen | 32.0% | 25.0% | 1 |
Per RentCafe’s analysis, while these two south Texas cities and one east Texas city have extremely low Cost of Living scores (McAllen, for instance is -19 points lower than the national average), other economic factors impact their livability.
For instance, in Brownsville, while the city is -18 points below the national cost of living average, poverty is still higher than in most U.S. cities studied, with a 25.3% poverty rate. Additionally, these cities’ unemployment rates are on par with cities more than triple their size. For instance, Sacramento, California (population 2,353,589) has the same unemployment rate as Brownsville (population 418,642).
Meanwhile, McAllen (population 864,686) has not only a poverty rate higher than New York City and Los Angeles combined, the south Texas city has the nation’s highest poverty rate (27.7%) among cities RentCafe analyzed.
