Ten Texas Cities Among Nation’s Best Performing

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (Milken Institute) – Ten Texas cities made a strong showing on the Milken Institute’s lists of best-performing U.S. cities, with seven ranking high among large cities and three ranking high among smaller metros.

Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos was the highest ranked Texas city on the list, coming in behind only San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City.

"Austin is the most consistent top-five finisher in the history of our Best-Performing Cities index," Milken said in its report. "Not only is it a dynamic generator of technology and creative industry jobs, but its economic growth is more stable than other top tech centers. This is demonstrated by job and wage growth patterns."

Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown was the next large Texas city, at seventh, immediately followed by Fort Worth-Arlington, Dallas-Plano-Irving and San Antonio-New Braunfels. Laredo was ranked 18th and Lubbock 20th.

Meanwhile, the Texas cities that ranked among the ten best-performing small cities in the country were Victoria (third), Midland (sixth) and College Station-Bryan (eighth).

Milken’s index was designed "to measure objectively which U.S. metropolitan areas are promoting economic vitality based on job creation and retention, the quality of new jobs and other criteria. The index shows where employment is stable and expanding, wages and salaries are increasing, and economies and businesses are thriving."