Plano appeared in the top four of a national ranking of the best cities to raise a family recently published by WalletHub.
Noting that families in particular might be looking to relocate to cities with lower costs of living, WalletHub launched an investigation to identify some of the best (and worst) places to raise children in the country.
The survey looked at 45 different metrics related to family life, including the affordability of housing, the quality of the education system, and more, in 182 cities across the U.S.
Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale and listed under one of five categories: family fun, health and safety, education and child care, affordability, and socioeconomics.
The average for each city was then calculated for a score out of 100 and ranked from highest to lowest.
Earning an impressive 68.34 out of a possible 100 points, Plano placed fourth behind Fremont, California (No.1, 73.71), Overland Park, Kansas (No.2, 71.35), and Irvine, California (No.3, 69.78).
The five worst cities for families based on WalletHub’s survey were Newark, New Jersey (No.178, 38.12), Birmingham, Alabama (No.179, 37.22), Detroit, Michigan (No.180, 36.32), Memphis, Tennessee (No.181, 34.80), and Cleveland, Ohio (No.182, 34.65).
A closer look at Plano’s performance in the survey reveals that its areas of strength lay in the categories of socioeconomics, health and safety, and affordability.
In terms of socioeconomics — covering an array of factors such as unemployment rate, divorce rate, debt per median earnings, and more — Plano clinched the second spot among the 182 cities falling under the scope of this survey.
It ranked third in terms of health and safety, which included metrics related to the violent crime rate per capita, the share of uninsured children, the availability of healthy food, and more.
Plano ranked eighth in affordability based on metrics related to the cost of living, the affordability of housing, the average credit standing, and more.
As recently reported in The Dallas Express, Plano was named the second best city to live in as a renter nationwide by RentCafe — an honor to which Plano Mayor John Muns reacted by saying, “We call ourselves the ‘City of Excellence’ for good reason.”
Yet the city lost a tiny bit of its shine in the categories of education and child care, where it placed No.23, and of family fun, where it ranked No.81.
The first category looked at costs related to child care as well as the quality of education.
In the 2021-2022 STAAR exams, 62% of students enrolled in Plano Independent School District (ISD) scored at grade level. Not only did this beat out struggling school districts like Dallas ISD, which logged just 41%, but it also beat the state average of 48%.
The second looked at opportunities for family recreation, such as the number of playgrounds, the bike score, and the parkland acreage per capita.
Nonetheless, Plano bested the other Texas cities considered in this survey.
Austin ranked the second-highest at No.26, followed by Grand Prairie (No.51), Irving (No.85), Laredo (No.87), Fort Worth (No.90), Amarillo (No.91), Brownsville (No.93), Arlington (No.97), and Garland (No.98).
Among Texas cities considered in the survey, Dallas came second to last.
The Texas cities ranked below the top 100 were El Paso (No.112), San Antonio (No.123), Lubbock (No.130), Corpus Christi (No.134), Dallas (No.138), and Houston (No.141).
A separate survey conducted by Niche earlier this year ranked Plano as the 11th best place to live in the country, with Richardson coming in 12th, as previously reported in The Dallas Express.
