Texas Cities Among The 10 Best Small Cities For Families

NEW YORK (CBS NEWS) - It's time to move again, but perhaps the big city is starting to lose its luster for your family.

This time, smaller cities are beckoning, with their more affordable homes, potential for growth and quieter neighborhoods. These typically suburban cities and towns balance the advantages of living near a big city with the perks of living a little farther afield.

Yet families won't find the same features in all small cities.

Our analysis

NerdWallet examined the data for 944 cities across the U.S. with populations of 25,000 to 75,000 residents to find the top options that offer the best combination of affordability, growth and prosperity, and family-friendliness.

Key takeaways

The top places are close to big cities. Nine of the top 10 cities in the analysis are suburbs. The exception is Bentonville, Arkansas, whose closest big-city neighbor (Tulsa, Oklahoma) is 115 miles away.

Some of the best are in Texas. Four out of the top 10 cities are in the Lone Star State -- suburbs of either Dallas or Austin.

The top 10 grew four times as fast as other cities. The population growth rate of the top 10, on average, was 24.5 percent from 2010 to 2015, compared with 5.9 percent for all cities in the analysis. Similarly, growth in median income for the top 10 averaged an 11.7 percent clip, while the average annual growth of median income of all cities examined was 2.7 percent.

Best small cities for families

1. LINTON HALL, VIRGINIA

An unincorporated area of Prince William County about 40 miles west of the nation's capital, Linton Hall shares its name with a local Catholic school. The area has seen a population surge in recent years, growing 21 percent (to 40,567 residents) from 2010 to 2015. It's a friendly place for families, too: 53 percent of families have children, making it the fourth-highest population of children in our analysis.

2. LITTLE ELM, TEXAS

Hugging the shores of Lewisville Lake about 35 miles north of Dallas, Little Elm was the fastest-growing city in the top 10, and the fourth-fastest-growing place in the analysis of all cities: The population increased nearly 47 percent (to 32,581 residents) from 2010 to 2015. It's also the second most-affordable city the top 10, with a median home value that puts it in the middle of the pack -- No. 559 out of 944 -- in our analysis.

3. LEANDER, TEXAS

This city was originally called Bagdad, but it was renamed in 1882 for Leander "Catfish" Brown, one of the men who helped build the new railroad through town. Leander today is a fast-growing suburb of Austin, having grown 37 percent (to 32,051 residents) from 2010 to 2015. Despite the growth in the number of residents and in median annual household income, which increased 12 percent (to $80,178) from 2010 to 2015, median home values are still below average relative to most cities in our analysis. Leander's home value is the most affordable in the top 10, and No. 571 out of 944 places.

4. LEHI, UTAH

Named after a prophet in the Book of Mormon and about halfway between Salt Lake City and Provo, Lehi sits on the northern shore of the freshwater Utah Lake. It's a family-friendly city, ranking the highest in the top 10 and No. 3 overall for the percentage of households with children, at 55 percent. Like other cities in the top 10, it has attracted a lot of new residents in recent years, growing 28 percent (to a population of 54,079) from 2010 to 2015. The city also is home to a campus of software giant Adobe, which opened a 280,000-square-foot location in 2013.

5. SAMMAMISH, WASHINGTON

Once known as an area for resorts on the shore of Lake Sammamish, the city of Sammamish is about 30 miles east of Seattle, which is home to Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks and Costco. The city has the highest median annual household income in the top 10 ($147,349) and is No. 6 for income in the overall analysis. Not surprisingly, Sammamish also has the highest median home value (over $600,000) in the top 10 and is No. 42 overall. That said, it also scores well in our analysis for family-friendliness, with the percentage of families with children at 49 percent.

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