Positioned to Succeed

Keeping your New Year's resolution is so much easier in this North Texas city

Austin Photo Set: layne_new years resolutions not to make_dec 2012

Your self-control isn't the only thing influencing your resolutions, apparently.

Photo courtesy of intuitiononline.com

No matter if you vowed to eat less, exercise more, or grow your savings in 2017, your location has a say in how successful you might end up being. One reason why most of us break our New Year's resolutions by mid-February is that we're simply not positioned to succeed. Unless you live in Plano, that is.

WalletHub took five common resolution categories — weight loss and fitness, financial, education and employment, relationships and family, and bad habits — and determined their rankings for the 150 largest U.S. cities. Combining those five areas resulted in the personal finance website's list of the best and worst cities for keeping your New Year's resolutions.

Not only is Plano ranked fifth overall, it's No. 1 for people looking to improve their bank accounts through financial and employment goals. WalletHub looked at stats like income growth and homeownership rates, along with debt ratios and the poverty level, when scoring the financial category. Education and employment took into account public school system ratings, high school dropout rates, median annual income, job opportunities and security, and the quality of local universities.

Obviously Plano did well, but it racked up extra credit for having the second-highest annual income (adjusted for cost of living) and one of the five best public school system scores.

The Dallas suburb also made the top 10 for bad habit resolutions, with low scores in binge drinking, drug use, and smoking. Dallas itself doesn't show up on the overall list until No. 40, with Arlington at No. 56, Irving at No. 62, Grand Prairie at No. 64, and Fort Worth at No. 67.

Your chances of actually becoming "the new you" this year are also good if you live in Austin, which came in at No. 9 overall. That's much better than Houston's No. 34, but ultimately not as good as Salt Lake City, Utah, which took top honors and was followed by San Francisco and Scottsdale, Arizona.

But let's all be encouraging to those living in Detroit, which hit nearly rock-bottom in every category to end up in last place. There's always 2018 to work toward.

Media News

Dallas Morning News sees round of layoffs by new owner

It's unusual for a newspaper to turn down revenue.

Courtesy photo

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The Dallas Morning News is enacting layoffs in coming months — but is also making hires in its newsroom.

According to a statement, The Dallas Morning News will outsource its print page design operations, currently done in-house, to an external partner.

This shift aligns with the "centralized" design model implemented across Hearst Newspapers since 2023. Hearst acquired the newspaper in September 2025.

A statement from the Dallas News Guild, the staff's union, is more specific, stating that 26 people are being let go, and that the layoff "is eliminating our entire copy desk — including the sports copy desk — and outsourcing the print production work."

The guild called it a violation of a collective bargaining agreement with Hearst that "the employer may not seek to eliminate more than 20 employees as a result of the outsourcing during this Agreement."

According to the Dallas Morning News, affected employees on the multiplatform desk were notified on November 18 and will receive severance packages. They're also encouraged to apply for open positions within The Dallas Morning News, across Hearst Newspapers, and throughout Hearst’s broader businesses.

At the same time, 18 new roles will be created as part of continued efforts to invest in the newsroom under the leadership of Executive Editor Colleen Nelson.

"This evolution enables continued investment in reporting, storytelling and digital innovation—ensuring The Dallas Morning News remains focused on delivering high-impact journalism that serves North Texas communities," their statement says.

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