Metro population: 5,867,489
Cost-of-living index: 91
Median monthly rent: $775 (average is $819)
Average annual wage: $41,074
Unemployment rate: 8.3%
Percentage of Gen Y residents: 23.9%
Top employers: Wal-Mart Stores, Memorial Hermann Healthcare System, Administaff, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Continental Airlines, Kroger, Exxon Mobil
Houston offers great job prospects and exciting big-city amenities at a price so low, even struggling grads can afford it. Diversity is one of its unsung strengths. More than a million of Houston’s inhabitants were born outside of the U.S. H-Town’s economy is varied as well: The city has strong energy, manufacturing, aeronautics, transportation and healthcare sectors, and 25 Fortune 500 companies have headquarters here.
Reasons why Houston is in the top 10: A small-town cost of living in the country’s fourth-largest city, rents well below the national average, one of the country’s best restaurant scenes, vibrant nightlife, an hour from Gulf Coast beaches
(Kiplinger, Top 10 Great Cities for Young Adults)
Houston is the nation’s fourth-largest city (5 million in the metro area) and is also a multicultural, zoning-free hodgepodge where in one strip mall there might be a Vietnamese grocery, a Venezuelan empanada stand, and a big-beef meat market. Eat at great ethnic restaurants or shop in arts-and-antique neighborhoods. See world-class paintings and funky folk car parades. Then just down the road a bit you can walk the beaches of Galveston island and visit the astronauts at Space Center Houston.
A great magazine highlighting Houston!
