Austin Makes Forbes List Of Best Cities In Which To Raise Families

AUSTIN, TX -- Forbes has named Austin as one of the nation's best cities in which to raise a family, although its Achilles heel, traffic congestion, is noted as a drawback.

The prevalence of quality schools was listed as one of Austin's strengths in the Forbes survey. Its dynamics helped Austin secure the 14th spot among the nation's cities that Forbes ranked as the best in which to raise families.

Provo, Utah, won all the marbles, earning the top spot in the survey. That city claimed three of the top 15 spots -- low crime, quality of schools and a youthful population.

To compile its list of America's 100 largest metro areas that are best for raising a family, Forbes took into account:

• median household income (data from the Census Bureau)
• the percentage of owner-occupied households (also Census)
• percent of population under 18 (Census again)
• average commuting delays (Texas Transportation Institute)
• violent crime rates per 100,000 inhabitants (FBI)
• local school quality (greatschools.org)
• cost of childcare by state (the percentage of income an average two parent family spends on child care for two school age kids-Childcare Aware)

Those preparing the survey also took into account cost of living, as indexed by the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness, and housing affordability. The latter attribute was achieved by taking the percentage of homes in the area affordable to those making the local median income from the National Association of Home Builders, but could not be included as official data determining rankings given missing data for some metro areas.

"We avoided subjective items you might find on other lists of this sort, in favor of a logical, objective set of criteria to measure family friendliness," Forbes adds.

The cities making the top 15 list, in ascending order follow. There were some ties, notably for the 15th slot as seen below. The fourth position also was a three-way tie. According to Forbes, the best cities to raise a family are:

15. Salt Lake City, Utah
15. Cincinnati, Ohio
15. Minneapolis, Minnesota
14. Austin, Texas
13. Raleigh, North Carolina
12. Madison, Wisconsin
11. Des Moines, Iowa
10. Hartford, Conn.
9. San Jose, Calif.
8. Bridgeport, Conn.
7. Harrisburg, Penn.
4. Honolulu, Hawaii
4. Richmond, Va.
4. Allentown, Penn.
3. Oxnard, Calif.
2. Ogden, Utah

1. Provo, Utah

Austin has made other similar lists recently. New York City-based ValuePenguinin February ranked Austin as the 6th-best city for young families. But as in the Forbes survey, traffic was noted as a major negative. Another drawback to Austin was its ever-rising cost of living, according to ValuePenguin.

And in March, U.S. News & World Report deemed Austin as among the "best places to live." The magazine ranked Austin in the penultimate slot, just a notch below the top spot held by Denver. In its compilation, the magazine lauded Austin's cultural history and an abundance of both recreational areas and music venues.

But U.S. News & World Report also offered a cautionary note about Austin's high cost of living.

Traffic and cost of living -- the two factors that apparently prevent Austin from being a Utopian ideal. Guess you can't have it all.