When it comes to America’s next boom towns the future is looking bright in Texas.
Forbes magazine recently ranked the top American cities with the best chances of prospering in the coming decade.
Texas’ four largest metropolitan cities – Austin Houston Dallas/Fort Worth and San Antonio – all came in the top 10. Each city has enjoyed double-digit job growth from 2010 through 2014 well above the national average of 8.1 percent. They also all have posted income growth well above the national average.
Forbes reports that the Texas cities have also become major people magnets with huge growth in their populations of young educated millennials and households with children.
Topping the list in first place is the capital of the Lone Star State Austin. The city has seen an explosive 19.1 percent in job growth between 2010 and 2015.
“The clear star of the show is No. 1-ranked Austin which has become the nation’s superlative economy over the past decade” Forbes states.
Austin leads the pack in terms of population growth up 13.2 percent between 2010 and 2014 in large part driven by the strongest rate of net domestic in-migration of the 53 largest metropolitan areas over the same span: 16.4 per 1000 residents. The educated proportion of its population between 25 and 44 is 43.7 percent well ahead of the national average of 33.6 percent.
Dallas/Fort Worth is ranked seventh on the list with a population growth of 8.2 percent between 2010 and 2014 driven by a domestic in-migration of 6.6 per 1000 residents. The city has also experienced a job growth rate of 15 percent over the past five years and 33.4 percent of adults between the ages of 25-44 hold a bachelor’s degree.
To rank the cities Forbes considered eight metrics: the percentage of children in the population the birth rate net domestic migration the percentage of the population aged 25-44 with a bachelor’s degree income growth the unemployment rate and population growth.
