How to Choose a North Texas City (and How Ours Is Scored)
Nine factors, every score derived from a citable anchor - TEA ratings, Walk Score, ACS commute times. Including the data we deliberately refuse to use, and why.
Most “best places to live” lists are a ranking of someone else's priorities. The useful question is narrower: best for what, and for whom?
North Texas has more than twenty cities a relocating buyer might reasonably consider, and they are not arranged on a single quality axis. Frisco is not a better version of Garland. They are answers to different questions, at prices that differ by more than double.
This is how the matcher on this site scores them, what each score is actually derived from, and - the part most tools skip - what it deliberately refuses to look at.
Why Most City Comparisons Fail
Three failure modes, and nearly every list online exhibits at least one.
They rank on a hidden weighting. A list that puts Frisco first has decided that schools and new construction matter more than price and walkability. That may not be your ordering, and it is almost never disclosed.
They score from opinion rather than measurement.A hand-typed “walkability: 7” is a guess wearing a number's clothing. Once a judgment is in a table, it stops looking like a judgment.
They use data that is not legal for an agent to steer on. More on this below, because it is the most important thing in this post and the least discussed.
The Nine Factors
Each city is scored 0-10 on nine factors, and every score is derived in code from one raw, citable anchor. Not typed. That means the methodology is the calculation - change an anchor and every city moves the same way.
| Factor | Derived from |
|---|---|
| Schools | TEA A-F accountability scaled score for the primary district |
| Affordability | Median single-family price (80%) and effective tax rate (20%) |
| Short commute | Census ACS mean travel time to work |
| Walkable | Walk Score® for the city, rescaled to 0-10 |
| Dining & entertainment | Restaurant, retail and entertainment density |
| Space & lot size | Population density - lower density scores higher |
| New construction | ACS median year structure built |
| Nature & water | Parks, trail networks and lake frontage serving the city |
| Luxury | Median price relative to the metro top, weighted to premium new build |
Two of these are worth a closer look because they behave in ways people find counterintuitive.
Affordability is not just price.It is 80% median price and 20% effective property tax rate, because in Texas the tax rate is a large enough share of carrying cost to reorder cities. Richardson is cheaper than Plano on price and carries a 2.18% rate against Plano's 1.71% - the gap narrows considerably once you own it rather than just buy it.
Space and new construction usually trade against walkability.Low density is what produces big lots, and it is also what makes errands on foot impossible. A buyer who marks both “space” and “walkable” as must-haves is describing a place that mostly does not exist here, and the honest output is a set of compromises rather than a perfect match.
Weighting: Where the Real Answer Comes From
The factor scores are the same for everyone. What differs is what you do with them.
Each factor gets one of four settings: Not important (0), Nice to have (1), Important (2), Must-have (3). Your match percentage is the weighted average of a city's scores against those weights. A Must-have counts three times as much as a Nice to have, and anything you leave at Not important is excluded from the calculation entirely rather than quietly counted at a low value.
This is the part that does the work, and it is why the ranking is genuinely yours. Set schools to Must-have and affordability to Not important and you will get a very different list than the reverse - from identical underlying data.
It also has a diagnostic use worth mentioning. If you mark seven of nine factors as Must-have, the weighting flattens and nearly every city scores similarly. That is not the tool failing; it is the tool telling you that you have not prioritized yet, which is the actual work of choosing a place to live.
The Must-Have Floor
A city scoring below 6.5 out of 10 on something you marked Must-have is flagged as missing it and demoted below every city that clears all of yours.
It is not hidden, though, and that is a deliberate design decision. Hiding a near-miss is how a matcher lies by omission. A city that scores 6.4 on walkability when you needed 6.5 might still be your answer once you see it beside the alternatives - and you cannot make that call about a result you were never shown. Rank it down, label it clearly, keep it visible.
What We Deliberately Don't Score
The engine reads no demographic data and no safety proxy of any kind. Not race, not income distribution, not household composition, not crime statistics. This is the most important paragraph on the page.
Under the Fair Housing Act it is unlawful to steer a buyer toward or away from an area on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability, or familial status. Crime data is routinely used as a proxy for precisely those characteristics, which is why an agent recommending neighborhoods on “safety” is on legally dangerous ground regardless of intent. A tool built by an agent that scored on it would be automating the violation.
So it is absent by construction rather than by policy - there is no field to read.
If safety matters to you, and it reasonably might, the right sources are the police department for the jurisdiction, published incident data, and your own visits at different times of day and week. That is not a deflection; it is genuinely better information than any score, and it is information you are entitled to gather for yourself.
What This Cannot Do
- It compares cities, not neighborhoods. Plano is not one place - Willow Bend, Legacy West, downtown, and Hunters Glen differ from each other by more than some of these cities differ. Use the matcher to get from twenty candidates to three, then read the neighborhood guides.
- District ratings are not campus ratings. A strong district can contain a weak campus, and several of these cities are split across multiple districts, where the boundary runs down a street rather than around the city. Verify the campuses serving the specific address.
- It does not know your commute. The score uses a citywide ACS average. Your drive to your actual office at your actual departure time is the number that will govern your quality of life, and only you can measure it.
- Some anchors are estimates. Where no authoritative figure exists for a small exurb, the anchor is a reasoned estimate flagged as low confidence. Shown, not buried - but weigh it accordingly.
Used properly, this narrows a bewildering list to a manageable one on criteria you set and can inspect. It does not tell you where to live. It tells you which three or four places deserve a Saturday.
Then go drive them - at rush hour, and again on a Sunday morning. That part has never been replaceable.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does the neighborhood matcher decide which city fits me?+
You rate nine factors on a four-level scale - Not important, Nice to have, Important, Must-have - and your match percentage is the weighted average of each city’s factor scores against those weights. A Must-have counts three times as much as a Nice to have, and a factor left at Not important is excluded from the calculation entirely. Every underlying factor score is derived in code from a single citable anchor rather than typed by hand, so the methodology is reproducible: change an anchor and every city’s score moves the same way.
Where do the school scores come from?+
The Texas Education Agency’s A through F accountability rating for the primary district serving each city, converted to a scaled score. It is a public, standardized, statewide measure, which is exactly why it was chosen over the private ratings sites that dominate search results and that blend test scores with unweighted parent reviews. The important limitation is that it is a district-level figure, and districts are not uniform - a city can carry an excellent district rating while individual campuses within it vary considerably. Verify the specific campuses serving a specific address.
Does the matcher use crime or demographic data?+
No, and that is deliberate rather than an oversight. Steering a buyer toward or away from an area on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability, or familial status is prohibited under the Fair Housing Act, and crime statistics are widely used as a proxy for exactly those characteristics. The engine reads no demographic field and no safety proxy of any kind. If safety is a priority for you, the correct sources are the police department for the jurisdiction and your own visits at different times of day - not a score from a real estate agent.
What happens if a city misses one of my must-haves?+
It gets flagged and demoted below every city that meets all of your must-haves, but it is never hidden from the results. A city scoring under 6.5 out of 10 on a factor you marked Must-have is treated as missing it. The reason for showing it anyway is that hiding a near-miss is how a matching tool lies by omission - a city that scores 6.4 on walkability when you needed 6.5 may still be the right answer once you see it next to the alternatives, and you cannot make that judgment about a result you were never shown.
How current is the data behind the scores?+
The numeric anchors are point-in-time as of July 2026 and each is cited to its source in the methodology panel the tool renders. Where an authoritative figure genuinely does not exist for a small exurb - a Walk Score for a town too small to have one computed, say - the anchor is a reasoned estimate explicitly flagged as low confidence, so the interface can be honest about which numbers are measured and which are estimated. That distinction is shown rather than buried.
Does the matcher work at the neighborhood level within a city?+
No - it compares cities, and it is worth being clear about that because the distinction matters most in the largest ones. Plano is not one place: Willow Bend, Legacy West, downtown, and Hunters Glen differ in price, age of housing stock, and walkability by more than some cities in the comparison differ from each other. Use the matcher to get from twenty candidate cities to three or four, then read the individual neighborhood guides for the intra-city decision.
Run Your Own Numbers
About the Author
Licensed Realtor · DFW North Texas
Specializing in Plano, Frisco, McKinney, and Allen. Helping buyers and sellers navigate North Texas since 2015, with honest advice, deep local knowledge, and no pressure.
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