Dallas Ranks As The Best Metro Area For Families To Live, Study Says

Five stories that have North Texas talking: Allen was top ranked city in the Dallas metro for families; citizenship applications in Texas are through the roof; there’s a new nationally beloved bakery in town; and more.

In an annual report from Apartment List, Dallas topped the list of Top 10 Metro Areas for Families. The study was conducted with a focus on four weighted areas identified as being important to families — safety (35 percent), housing cost (30 percent), school quality (25 percent) and child friendliness (10 percent).

D-FW had four of the top 10 best cities for young families — Allen, Frisco, McKinney and Flower Mound — so it’s not surprising the metro ranked well as a whole. According to the report: The Dallas metro had the highest high school graduation rate of any metro in our study, and second lowest cost of living (just behind Oklahoma City). Crime and safety was the only area where it had somewhat middling results, scoring in the 54th percentile. Overall, however, cities in the Dallas area performed well across the board – even Denton, the poorest-performing city, received a B overall.”

Here’s more about the methodology from the online rental marketplace: “We weighted these factors using the percentages listed above to give a score for each city, then calculated population-weighted scores for each metropolitan area. We did this for 30 different metro areas.”

Another Texas metro, Houston, rounded out the Top 10. Read which metro areas found themselves at the very bottom.

• With presidential candidates focusing heavily on immigration, the number of citizenship applications has increased accordingly in Texas. The Texas Tribune reported: “It’s an uptick that’s not uncommon in presidential election years, but nonprofit workers helping legal residents apply for citizenship attribute the current application rush to a sense of fear among the immigrant community.” Applications jumped almost 14 percent in the July to September 2015 quarter (the latest federal figures available) compared to the same period in 2014, The Tribune reported. “With 1.3 million legal residents living in Texas, the state ranks third among states with the most legal residents eligible for citizenship — a figure the U.S. Department of Homeland Security puts at 950,000.” Read more. [The Texas Tribune]

• Last week’s hailstorms in the Fort Worth area could result in $300 million in vehicle repairs. The Associated Press reported: “Mark Hanna, a spokesman for the Insurance Council of Texas, estimated Friday that 50,000 vehicles were damaged by the Thursday morning storms, which pounded cars and busted windshields from Fort Worth to Arlington. The number of roofs damaged wasn't yet available, though Hanna says it's likely about one-third of the number of vehicles damaged.” Read more on the damage from Fort Worth Star-Telegram. [The Associated Press]

• A McKinney man underwent the first artificial bridge to heart transplant in North Texas. A surgical team at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas successfully performed a heart transplant on Bryan Tyo, who after having a heart attack in January, was being kept alive with a total artificial heart, according to KXAS (NBC 5). KXAS reported: “Tyo is the first patient in North Texas to use a SynCardia Total Artificial Heart Freedom driver. It's a 13.5 pound portable unit that powered his artificial heart. He lived with an artificial heart for about two months, until he received a donor heart Feb. 29.” Read more on the rare surgery. [KXAS-NBC 5]

• Buddy Valastro, star of TLC’s Cake Boss, opened his first bakery in Texas. Carlo’s Bake Shop opened Saturday to large crowds waiting for something sweet in Dallas’ Preston Center. The Dallas Morning News reported: “Just about everyone who wasn’t at the St. Patrick’s Day parade on Greenville Avenue was lined up instead at Carlo’s to sample its renowned cannoli, doughnuts, cookies and cakes. The original Carlo’s opened 106 years ago in Hoboken, N.J. With the new Preston Center location, there are now 13 in seven states.” [The Dallas Morning News]