One of the best small towns in America is located right next to Austin, a new online list says.
WalletHub’s 2017 analysis of the “Best Small Cities in America” ranked more than 1,200 U.S. cities with populations between 25,000 and 100,000 based on 33 key indicators of livability, such as housing costs, school quality and restaurants per capita.
While 80 Texas towns made the list, one stood out among the rest: Cedar Park.
According to WalletHub, the Williamson County town ranked 114th in total affordability and 10th in economic health, among other rankings, to place it firmly in the 98th percentile of all small cities in the study.
Cedar Park’s population was 48,937 at 2010 census. According to the 2017 Census Estimate, the population is 75,226. A small portion of Cedar Park extends into Travis County.
The only other Texas city in the same percentile was Flower Mound, but other Central Texas cities on the list include Leander, Georgetown and Pflugerville.
The place with the worst standing on the list was Fort Hood, which is a little unfair seeing as it’s a military installation, but it has grown to be a small city in the decades since it was established. “The Great Place” placed dead last in WalletHub’s “home ownership rate” category.
Other notable findings: Keller has the lowest housing costs in Texas, Nacogdoches is tied for the highest income growth and Pharr and San Juan are the second-least- and least-insured small towns in the study.
