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2 Dallas-area neighborhoods named best places to raise a family in Texas

Is your area good for kiddos?

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If you're looking to start or add to your brood, you'll want to be located in these highly sought-after Texas areas. That's according to Niche, the online platform that helps people choose schools and places to live.

It just released its rankings of the Best Places to Raise a Family in Texas, and two Dallas-Fort Worth spots make the top five. Cottonwood Creek, a neighborhood in Richardson that Niche curiously identifies as Cotten Creek South, and Coppell, in the northwest corner of Dallas, are Nos. 2 and 5, respectively.

Niche used weighted data to arrive at its rankings, with its own public school grades comprising the largest chunk of the score (20 percent).

Next is the percentage of residents who have received a bachelor’s degree or higher (12.5 percent), and the cost of living grade, violent and property crime rates, and a housing grade (which includes home values, property taxes, housing costs, and more) all weighing in at 10 percent.

Other factors such as family amenities (access to parks, libraries, and cultural events), outdoor activities, walkability, diversity, and an overall score determined by Niche users on a scale of 1-5.

The percentage of households with children under the age of 18 also figured in, obviously.

Rounding out the top five in Texas are the affluent town of Rollingwood, outside Austin, at No. 1, The Woodlands in Houston at No. 3, and Cinco Ranch (also in Houston) at No. 4.

The Woodlands also shows up on Niche's list of the Best Cities to Live, claiming the top spot in the nation while Plano (No. 7) and Richardson (No. 12) also appear.

This is the seventh consecutive year that Niche has produced these rankings, spanning 228 cities and 18,516 towns and neighborhoods.

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Texas shocks as America's No. 3 least safe state in 2026 report

Photo by Hiroshi Kimura on Unsplash

Texas ranks as the 48th "safest" state — out of 50.

While no state is invulnerable, some do more to protect their residents than others. And a new study has declared Texas one of the five least safe states in America.

WalletHub's "Safest States in America (2026)" report examined all 50 states for their emergency preparedness and for residents' personal and residential, financial, workplace, and road safety. Factors that weighed into the rankings include specific crime rates per capita, the share of the population that is uninsured, road quality ratings, workplace injury statistics, and more.

Texas ranked at the bottom of the list as the 48th "safest" state — or the third least safe state. It's joined by several other Southern states, like Mississippi (No. 50), Louisiana (No. 49), Florida (No. 47), and Arkansas (No. 46).

According to WalletHub, Texas specifically ranks third to last in the nationwide "emergency preparedness" category, which was determined based on the prevalence of climate disasters causing $1 billion or more in damages from 1980-2024, and the loss amount resulting from those disasters.

The Lone Star State also ranked 40th (or 10th worst) across three safety categories: personal and residential safety, financial safety, and road safety. The report additionally found that Texas has the highest rate of uninsured residents nationally.

Texas' "workplace safety" was the state's highest-ranking category, landing 30th nationally.

Additional rankings that determined Texas' overall safety include:

No. 30 – Assaults per capita
No. 32 – Fatal occupational injuries per 100,000 full-time workers
No. 32 – Sex offenders per capita
No. 35 – Murders and non-negligent manslaughters per capita
No. 36 – Fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles of travel
No. 41 – Loss amounts from climate disasters per capita

According to the report, the five safest states in America are all located in the Northeast. Vermont leads as the country's safest state in 2026, followed by Massachusetts (No. 2), Maine (No. 3), New Hampshire (No. 4), and Connecticut (No. 5).

Though every state has varying levels of safety, WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo asserted that the safest places in the U.S. categorically invest in protecting their residents. Top-ranking states have low crime rates and diligently maintain their road infrastructure, and other states that prioritize their residents' safety have "strong economies and job markets that prevent people from falling into dangerous financial situations."

"[The safest states in America] have high levels of occupational safety and disaster preparedness, too," Lupo said. "In addition, states are made safer by efforts that individual residents take, such as forming a neighborhood watch or working in firefighting and EMT jobs at high rates."

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