Weighed down by affordability

Dallas-Fort Worth no longer a top-25 place to live, declares U.S. News & World Report

What's wrong with Dallas, U.S. News?

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Dallas-Fort Worth has tumbled out of the top 25 on U.S. News & World Report’s closely watched annual list of the best places to live in the U.S.

U.S. News' 2021 Best Places to Live ranking, released July 13, puts DFW at No. 37 among the country’s biggest metro areas. That's 13 spots lower than the area’s No. 24 ranking in 2020, and well below its rankings in 2019 (No. 21), 2018 (No. 18), and 2017 (No. 15).

What's going on here?

For the 2021 ranking, U.S. News & World Report crunched data for the country’s 150 biggest metro areas. It's worth nothing that in previous years, they'd looked at the 125 biggest metro areas. The data in 2021 encompasses affordability, job prospects, desirability, quality of life, and migration patterns.

“This year we’re looking at how the most populous metro areas in the U.S. fared for much of the coronavirus pandemic, and seeing how far they’ll need to come to recover,” says Devon Thorsby, U.S. News real estate editor, in a release. “It shouldn’t be a surprise that many metro areas that saw unemployment levels skyrocket in 2020 fell in the rankings, but those with greater employment stability tended to fare well.”

Still, U.S. News lauds the Metroplex — which ranks No. 17 in their subcategory of Best Places to Retire — for "offering both big-city excitement and quiet, suburban living."

"The Dallas-Fort Worth metro area has an interesting mix of Texas pride and cosmopolitan offerings," the report says. "The cowboy life still exists in Fort Worth, while Dallasites love the trendy local bars and numerous retail shops. And no matter which part of the Metroplex they call home, sports fans rally together behind their professional sports teams."

DFW also has the "small-town feel of Friday night football games and backyard parties" in its suburbs, the report adds.

"In those areas, residents can bump into their friends at the local Tex-Mex restaurant, children ride their bikes, and joggers hit the pavement for evening runs," the site says. "But even in DFW proper, many people exude that Texas friendliness with a wave or a 'hello' to strangers."

(That's actually the exact description of DFW that CultureMap quoted from the report in 2019; to be fair, maybe the the Dallas writer hasn't left her house since 2019.)

DFW wasn't the only place to fall hard. Every large city in Texas tumbled down the list this year:

Houston, ranked No. 39 in 2021, was No. 27 last year.

San Antonio, ranked No. 75 in 2021, was No. 41 last year.

Even buzzy Austin came in at just No. 5 this year, two spots lower than the area’s No. 3 ranking in 2020, and four spots below its first-place showings in 2017, 2018, and 2019.

“Housing affordability is always of great concern, but as people solidify their plans to work remotely, struggle to find a house in a hot housing market or consider a cross-country move, a low cost of living is even more important,” Thorsby says.

Who comes out on top in 2021? Boulder, Colorado, appears at No. 1 on this year’s list, followed by Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, at No. 2; Huntsville, Alabama, at No. 3; and Fayetteville, Arkansas, at No. 4.

No other Texas metro area besides Austin showed up in the top 25 of this year’s ranking. Elsewhere in the state, Killeen-Temple landed at No. 114, Beaumont-Port Arthur at No. 124, Corpus Christi at No. 129, El Paso at No. 131, McAllen at No. 139, and Brownsville at No. 140.

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Southern Methodist University is the 103rd best college nationwide, and it ranked No. 5 in Texas, Forbes says.

Editor's note: Stories about city life were some of our most-read headlines of the year in Dallas. Readers devoured stories about suburbs, schools, and transportation, curious to see what made the best-of cut for scores of rankings. And, of course, we all needed to check in with the world's richest people and see which ones live in Texas.

Here's a look back at the most-read Dallas city life stories of 2025:

1. 5 Dallas high schools rank among America's best in 2025, per U.S. News. Five prestigious Dallas-area high schools are living up to their reputations for top-tier education after being ranked among the best high schools in the country, according to U.S. News and World Report's annual rankings.

2. 27 Dallas billionaires land on new Forbes list of world's richest people. More billionaires have made it onto the 2025 World's Billionaires List than ever before, according to Forbes. This year, 27 Dallas billionaires are among the richest people in the world, including Elaine Marshall, Lyndal Stephens Greth, and Jerry Jones.

3. Techy Dallas suburb is No. 1 hot spot for remote workers in U.S. A SmartAsset survey of cities with the biggest remote workforces has revealed Frisco is the No. 1 city with the highest share of remote workers in the nation. The study found over 40,000 Frisco residents work from home, which is more than a third of all of the city's workers aged 16 and older (117,193 total workers).

Person working from home Working from home comes with its own challenges, like picking which part of the couch to work from. Photo by Jodie Cook on Unsplash

4. 3 affluent Dallas neighbors dominate new list of wealthiest U.S. suburbs. Three well-to-do Dallas-area communities — University Park, Southlake, and Colleyville — are among the wealthiest suburbs in America in 2025, a report confirmed. The three affluent Dallas neighbors were lauded in GoBankingRates ranking of the 50 wealthiest U.S. suburbs, based on 2022 and 2023 average household income data sourced from the U.S. Census Bureau.

5. 4 Dallas-area universities make 2026 list of world’s best schools. The University of Texas at Dallas, University of North Texas, Southern Methodist University, and University of Texas at Arlington are among the top 1,200 schools included in the QS World University Rankings 2026. The Princeton Review agreed, also naming SMU, UTD, TCU, and University of Dallas to its best-in-the-U.S. list, while Forbes named six DFW universities to its list of America's top colleges.

6. 11 cities around Dallas make list of best places to live in the U.S. Nearly a dozen Dallas suburbs, including perennial favorite Flower Mound, have landed among the best places to live in 2025, according to U.S. News & World Report.

7. Dallas middle school ranks No. 1 in Texas for 2026, per U.S. News. More than a dozen Dallas-Fort Worth elementary and middle schools have excelled on U.S. News and World Report's just-released list of the best K-8 schools in Texas for 2026, with one that's first in class: The No. 1 best middle school in Texas is Dallas ISD's William B. Travis Academy/Vanguard for the Academically Talented and Gifted.

8. North Dallas suburb lauded as 5th best U.S. city for working parents. Frisco already has a reputation as a great place for families and a top spot for remote workers, so it's no surprise that the city has clocked in as one of the best places in the country for working parents, too.

Frisco Frisco ranked No. 5 nationwide in a 2025 study. Visit Frisco/Facebook

9. City of Dallas to put a pause on curbside trash collection issue. In October, the city of Dallas put the curbside trash collection debate on hold. According to a release, the Sanitation Department temporarily paused implementation of an alley-to-curb program that was approved, in order to evaluate additional options for continuing alley service where residents strongly prefer it.

10. Dallas suburb proclaimed 8th best U.S. city to drive in, per report. Dallas roadways are no picnic, but in one neighboring town, it's easy street: A report by WalletHub puts none other than Plano on its list of the top 10 best U.S. cities to drive in for 2025.