Dwellics analyzed data on over 20,000 Southern cities in Texas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia to compile the report, with a focus on the quality of education, community, climate comfort, infrastructure, safety, and finance.
While Texas and Virginia rank highly, grabbing five of the top ten spots between them, South Carolina's town Fort Mill takes top marks as the highest-rated. The state's only other appearance on the list comes at number seventy-three, the Charleston suburb Mount Pleasant. The top five Southern cities to raise a family:
Fort Mill, South Carolina (#1)
Lucas, Texas (#2)
Short Pump, Virginia (#3)
Sugar Land, Texas (#4)
Brentwood, Tennessee (#5)
Interestingly, the region's state Tennessee is spending the most significant portion of its budget on infrastructure and is represented in the report only by Brentwood, indicating that family-focused factors may be a more considerable influence in deciding where to live than roads and utilities.
According to a report released by Upwork, the world's largest work marketplace, America's shift to remote work will drive a significant increase in migration; this surge in the numbers of households planning to relocate overwhelmingly affects those living in major cities, with almost 55% of people planning to move more than two hours away from their current location. As more parents and families are finding, being untethered means being able to relocate to seek out the best for their families, including searching for the type of family-friendly communities with exceptional amenities abundant in the South.