A few eyebrows were likely raised when Farhad Manjoo, opinion columnist for The New York Times, examined the interactive quiz presented in his column, “Everyone’s Moving to Texas, Here’s Why,” and the best place to move in the nation was … Euless.
Nothing wrong with Euless. It’s a great place. Trinity High School’s football team is always a state contender. The southwest part of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport juts into Euless. The city is notable for having one of the largest concentrations of Tongans outside of Tonga. Actress Janine Turner grew up in Euless. The city has a nice Target on its west end.
But Euless has not been a player in the best-of lists that real-estate-themed websites publish. Frisco and Plano typically make those best-of lists.
But in the Times’ interactive quiz, Manjoo entered what was important to him and found that Euless scored exemplary on a scale of 10, scoring a perfect 10 on racial diversity, a 9 on jobs, and an 8 on climate risks. Woodlawn, Ohio, and Edgecliff Village, an enclave of Fort Worth, also scored 90 percent. Dallas suburbs dominated the rest of the list, as Garland, Grand Prairie, Mesquite, DeSoto, and Cedar Hill scored 87 percent.
Your experience with the quiz might vary.
“For the many hypothetical life scenarios I ran through our quiz, the suburbs around Dallas — places like Plano, McKinney, Garland, Euless and Allen — came up a lot,” Manjoo wrote. “It’s clear why these are some of the fastest-growing areas in the country. They have relatively little crime and are teeming with jobs, housing, highly rated schools, good restaurants, clean air and racial and political diversity — all at a steep discount compared to the cost of living in America’s coastal metropolises.”
Manjoo focused on unemployment rates, affordability, and racial diversity but didn’t delve into other attributes such as schools, safety, and quality of life.
In his research, Manjoo, a California resident, didn’t just coldly project the suburbs around Dallas and Fort Worth. He rented a pickup and toured the region.
“Texas has barbecue and California has burritos, but the American urban landscape has grown stultifyingly homogeneous over the past few decades, and perhaps one reason so many Californians are comfortable moving to Texas is that, on the ground, in the drive-through line at Starbucks or the colossal parking lot at Target, daily life is more similar than it is different,” Manjoo wrote.
J.H. Cullum Clark, director of the George W. Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative, took the quiz and wrote about his findings in The Dallas Morning News.
“It’s not enough for cities to be affordable. To thrive, they must be diverse, vibrant places to live and work — the secret sauce that’s helping many North Texas cities win,” Clark wrote.
The Times’ presentation was released around Thanksgiving, but it’s a good rabbit hole to try anytime. Using 30 metrics to create the data, the quiz can create a fascinating snapshot of locales that would work for you. Try it.
