A nod to North Texas

Nature-filled Dallas suburb flourishes as Money’s No. 4 best place to live in 2021

Flower Mound is known for its outdoorsy offerings in places like Stone Creek Park.

Facebook/Flower Mound Parks and Recreation

The Dallas suburb of Flower Mound is enjoying a blossoming reputation.

Money magazine awards Flower Mound the No. 4 spot on its new list of the 50 best places to live in the U.S. Just one other DFW community appears on the list: No. 19 Frisco.

The only other Texas city to make it is No. 25 Round Rock. Chanhassen, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis, lands in the No. 1 spot this year.

Flower Mound bumped Rockwall from the fourth-place perch it earned last year. Money says that to “keep the list interesting,” it disqualified the top five finishers from 2020, including Rockwall.

“Locals say Flower Mound still has a small-town feel, but it’s growing quickly. The city saw the highest job growth of any place on our list over the last five years. It also comes in second for the highest projected job growth over the next five, just after Round Rock down near Austin,” according to Money.

The publication highlights Flower Mound’s:

Recreational activities such as camping, boating, hiking, and horseback riding.
Annual Fourth of July bash.
Close proximity to Dallas.
Location near Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.
100 percent graduation rate at Flower Mound High School.
New campus of Midwestern State University.

And about the name itself, "Flower Mound," Money writes, "According to town legend, in the mid-1800s in what is now Texas, settlers came across a hill covered in an unusually large number of wildflowers and aptly named it The Flower Mound. Now, 150 years later, more than 175 types of wildflowers, plants and grasses have been identified on the mound, and the area surrounding the hill is a thriving Dallas suburb..."

For the list, Money considered communities with populations ranging from 25,000 to 500,000. Flower Mound is home to about 76,000 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The magazine then narrowed the list to 50 towns or cities based on factors such as:

Crime rate.
Median income.
Population growth.
Diversity.
Cost of living.
Economic opportunity.
Education.
Amenities.
Health and safety.
Housing market.
Quality of life.

"Flo Mo," as it's affectionately known, is no stranger to making lists. In 2019, it topped Chamber of Commerce's list of best places to live in Texas; came in No. 4 on Apartment List's ranking of best cities for young families; and nabbed SafeHome.org's title as the safest city in Texas.

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stay alert

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."

safety texas wallethub reports