kick off your career

3 Dallas neighbors hustle onto list of top 20 U.S. career hotspots

Frisco was the highest-ranked city in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Dallas has already proven to be a major hub for business, and now three of its neighbors – Frisco, Flower Mound, and McKinney – are rising up among the best small U.S. cities for big career opportunities.

A new nationwide survey from CoworkingCafe ranked the three Dallas-Fort Worth cities among its top-20 career hotspots with populations under 250,000 residents.

According to the study, these standout U.S. suburbs "combine economic acceleration with day-to-day livability, offering residents both upward mobility and stable community fundamentals."

Frisco ranked the highest, climbing up into No. 11, and CoworkingCafe said the suburb has a "highly engaged" workforce whose wages have surged 33 percent since 2019. Frisco households make a median income of $145,444 a year, the report added.

"The labor force is highly engaged (74.2 percent) with low unemployment and a strong employer base supported by 3,050 establishments per 100[,000] residents," the report said. "With 95 percent [of residents having] fiber access, excellent healthcare and top-tier safety, Frisco backs its economic strength with day-to-day comfort."

Frisco's high income and fast Wi-FI speeds also make it a highly desirable place to live for remote workers.

Affluent Flower Mound, which was crowned the best place to live in the U.S. in 2025, followed after Frisco in the No. 15 spot. CoworkingCafe said the suburb's $166,624 median household income has grown 25 percent from 2019 to 2024, and the city's "affordability remains favorable relative to income levels." Career-focused Flower Mound residents aren't shy about being big spenders.

If North Texans are seeking affordability over all other factors, No. 20-ranking McKinney is the place to be. The report said McKinney offers the perfect balance between "affordability, opportunity and amenities." It doesn't hurt that households earn a median annual income of $124,177, a figure that has ballooned 24 percent over the last five years.

"The findings reveal two clear paths to success: fast-growing suburban hubs buzzing with innovation and more established tech-driven economies that already have a global reach," the report said. "Together, they show that even smaller places can give you big advantages professionally, sometimes even more than the big metros."

Elsewhere in Dallas-Fort Worth, other career hotspots with populations under 250,000 residents that made it into the top 100 include Mansfield (No. 37), Allen (No. 43), Richardson (No. 58), and Lewisville (No. 80).

Here's how other Texas suburbs fared among CoworkingCafe's top 100 best career hotspots in 2026:

No. 17 – Pflugerville
No. 22 – Cedar Park
No. 31 – Round Rock
No. 59 – Pearland
No. 73 – League City
No. 76 – Sugar Land
No. 89 – Temple
No. 90 – Georgetown
No. 97 – Amarillo

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entrepreneurship starts here

Dallas leads on 2026 list of the best big cities to start a business

Photo by Gabriel Tovar on Unsplash

Dallas ranked 11th in the U.S. in 2026, and previously ranked 16th in 2025.

The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is showing its strong entrepreneurial spirit after Dallas and five of its neighbors appeared on WalletHub's new list of the best large U.S. cities for starting a business in 2026. Dallas leads the charge in North Texas as the No. 11 best city nationwide.

The annual report compared 100 U.S. cities based on 19 relevant metrics across three key dimensions: business environment, access to resources, and costs. Factors that were analyzed include five-year business survival rates, job growth comparisons from 2020 and 2024, population growth of working-age individuals aged 16-64, office space affordability, and more.

Florida cities locked out the top five best places in America for starting a new business: Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Hialeah, and St. Petersburg.

Dallas' business environment ranked as the fifth-best in the country, and the city ranked 45th for its "access to resources," and 64th in the "business costs" category. Dallas also topped a separate ranking of cities with the longest average workweeks nationwide.

Here's how Dallas compared in some of the other rankings in the study:

No. 24 – Numerical small business growth
No. 29 – Financing accessibility
No. 40 – Labor costs
No. 55 – Cost of living

Elsewhere in North Texas, Irving ranked No. 16 nationally, followed by Arlington (No. 23), Fort Worth (No. 30), Plano, (No. 35), and Garland (No. 65).

Earlier this year, WalletHub declared Texas the third-best state for starting a business in 2026, and several DFW cities have seen robust growth after being recognized among the top 20 best career hotspots in the U.S. WalletHub also ranked Plano the 7th best U.S. city for finding a job.

Only seven other Texas cities earned spots in the report: Austin (No. 24), Houston (No. 26), Lubbock (No. 36), Corpus Christi (No. 39), San Antonio (No. 64), El Paso (No. 67), and Laredo (No. 76).

Austin tied with Boise, Idaho and Fresno, California for the highest average growth in the number of small businesses nationally, while Corpus Christi and Laredo topped a separate list of the U.S. cities with the most accessible financing.

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