The Cities of Texas: Ranked

I have lived in Texas all my life (if we don’t count the six weeks when I was born in Oklahoma). I have been to most of it at one point or another, though not all.

To those of you that don’t understand, I am writing this from a hotel room in San Antonio. I am currently 540 miles away from El Paso. San Antonio is in the middle of the state. I am also about 300 miles west of Louisiana on the same road.

This place is so big, it is almost impossible to explain to people from other states.

Any Alaskans reading this, please be civil.

11. Lubbock

If I had more cities to talk about, Lubbock would rank lower. Lubbock will always be my least favorite place in Texas. The only place that even comes close to being as awful as Lubbock is a little place east of Houston called Baytown. Baytown is a humid swampland on the coast surrounded by rusty oil rigs and it smells like a garbage heap.

Lubbock is still worse.

My personal experience with Lubbock came around 2010. It is the only time that I have ever been there. My brother made the state finals for a group called Destination Imagination. This group is all about doing creative skits and things of that nature. For some reason, the state finals were in Lubbock.

If you refer to the map above, you will see that Lubbock is at least five hours away from anywhere that you would want to be.

For my Dad and I, leaving from Houston, it was ten hours away.

When we traversed the endless hours on the open plains of Diet Kansas, we arrived at the worst hotel room that I have ever stayed at. Texas Tech seemed like a decent place, but the town is so secluded from the rest of the world that it is just not worth going to.

If you are from there, I am so sorry. Since you’re reading this on the internet, I’m assuming you escaped.

10. Amarillo

I told you that Lubbock was five hours away from anywhere that you want to be. Amarillo is only two hours away from Lubbock.

The main reason that Amarillo ranks higher is that it is easier to leave. You can escape to Oklahoma City or Albuquerque in about three hours either direction.

The scenery of Amarillo is about the same as Lubbock, but the city is slightly more bustling. Amarillo is a big cow town, since it is surrounded by an ocean of grass and windmills in every direction.

I have a fear of wide open spaces that lingers to this day because I had a panic attack forty miles outside of Amarillo.

I think the sunsets are nice, but if you’re in Amarillo, odds are that your end goal is to be somewhere else.

9. Laredo

I have nothing against Laredo, I’ve just never been there and have not met anyone that has told me anything about it.

Here are the things that I know:

Laredo is where I-35 starts. This interstate runs all the way up through Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota all the way up to Duluth. It all begins on the Mexican border in Laredo, TX.

Laredo is the 10th most populous city in Texas, or else I would have left it off this list.

Nuevo Laredo is the Mexican City that basically is the same place as Laredo, but the cities are split in half by the Mexican-US border.

Laredo could be a very lovely place, I just don’t know anything about it.

8. El Paso

I have technically been here, but not really.

I was on a bus on the way to Arizona and we didn’t stop to get out. El Paso seems like a nice enough place. There are real mountains around the city, which is a rarity in Texas. El Paso also shares a border with Ciudad Juarez, the Mexican part of El Paso.

El Paso is bigger than Laredo and also much closer to cool states like Arizona and New Mexico.

I really don’t have a lot of insight to offer on El Paso or Laredo, they just both ranked high enough in population that I had to include them.

From here on out, I have real, personal experience with the remaining cities.

7. Austin

That’s right Austin. This is my list and I’m not putting you any higher.

Everyone loves Austin so much for its uniqueness and “culture”. I will admit that the areas surrounding Austin are absolutely gorgeous. If Round Rock was big enough to qualify for this list, maybe things would be different. We, however, are not talking about the suburbs, we’re talking about the city.

Let me tell you folks, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

First, the roads are the worst. There are several places surrounding Austin where the speed limit is 70, but there are stop lights. How are you supposed to go from 70 to 0 and then back up to 70 as soon as the light changes? I hate it.

I have also never experienced worse traffic than in this place. Houston has Austin beat by five million people if we’re including metroplexes. The numbers are 7 million vs 2 million in the metroplexes or 2.3 million vs 900,000 if we’re not including metroplexes. The point is, traffic in Austin is somehow worse than it is in Houston.

That makes no sense. Do better.

There are some good restaurants and cool places, but everything is so dang expensive. The people are also pretentious. If you live in Austin, you pretty much turn your nose up at everyone else that does not.

That means that the entire rest of the state is staring right back at you.

Austin is an admittedly cool place to visit once in a while, but the state of Texas rejects it on the grounds of not being culturally Texas. The University of Texas itself is in Austin. That is bad enough to justify Austin’s place in the bottom half of my top 11.

6. Houston

I cannot rank my hometown any higher.

I love being from Houston. I believe that I have many great qualities that come from my upbringing in Houston. Houston is culturally diverse, with people from many different backgrounds. It is a massive city, so there are many things to see and do. There are three professional sports teams (if you count the Rockets and Texans as actual professional teams) and a ton of H-town pride.

Because I am from Houston, I am confident that I can drive anywhere in America. I am not confident that I could drive in other countries, but the number of cars and six-lane highways in Houston has prepared me for anything the United States has to throw my way.

I am also confident that I can handle any level of heat. I did marching band outside on concrete in August for four years. I truly believe that I can handle any level of heat and humidity that this pre-apocalyptic version of Earth has to offer.

Besides the things Houston taught me, Houston is not a fun place to live/spend a lot of time.

The heat and humidity are awful. There are way too many people everywhere that you are trying to go. The mosquitoes are oppressive. The hurricanes are infrequent, but terrible. The trees block your view of anything around you. The pine pollen will kill you and your car in March.

Overall, I am proud to be from Houston. I do not want to go back and live there again.

5. Corpus Christi

I’m sorry guys, I just don’t like the beach. Corpus Christi is a very nice place. It is not the best beach in Texas, but it is up there. It really can’t hold a candle to basically anywhere in Florida, but it’s above average for a Gulf Coast beach.

Corpus Christi is big enough that there are a ton of fun things to do, but it also isn’t overly touristy like most Florida beach towns.

I think Corpus Christi is a very balanced place to go visit. If I liked the beach, it might have ranked a little higher, but my one or two visits to Corpus Christi were very lovely beachfront experiences.

4. Dallas

You have no idea how much this hurts.

Being from Houston means despising everything about Dallas. Dallas people are pretentious and arrogant, while Houston people are honest and hardworking. I believe that to my core and if you’re from Dallas, you can meet me outside and we’ll settle this.

Objectively, as a place, Dallas is fine. The skyline is honestly really cool and there are plenty of things to see and do. Dallas edges Houston because that area of Texas is just more pleasant.

There aren’t as many trees, so you can see the Earth around you a little better. The humidity is much lower, so you can go outside and still breathe.

I’m not going to write a love letter to Dallas. If you want to know more, go look it up. I did my due diligence as a writer and I ranked it where I think it should go, but I don’t have to be happy about it.

Dallas is big and there’s traffic and it’s stupid. The Cowboys suck and no one is a real Mavericks fan.

3. Arlington

Arlington takes everything good about Dallas and Fort Worth and it packages them together. All the fun stuff is in Arlington.

Six Flags over Texas is here. The Cowboys and Rangers both play here, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Arlington is smaller, so it’s not so crowded. The restaurants and attractions are all of comparable quality to places in the city, but there is more of a suburban feel to Arlington.

The only reason that Arlington doesn’t rank higher is because in a very real sense, it is just a suburb of Dallas-Fort Worth. I don’t treat Arlington as a real city, even though it ranks 7th on the list of most populous cities in Texas. Because it does rank in the top 10 of population, it qualifies for this list and I believe it deserves its place in the top 3.

Arlington is a great place and I would definitely recommend a visit.

2. San Antonio

The top 2 cities could be swapped and it wouldn’t bother me one bit. San Antonio is every bit deserving of the top spot on this list.

I’m a big fan of cities that don’t feel like a massive city and San Antonio pulls it off. Based on the actual city limits, San Antonio is the second largest city in Texas. If we go by the metroplexes, Houston and DFW are much much bigger. San Antonio is a very big place, though.

I just love this area. The scenery is phenomenal. There is the Riverwalk, which is admittedly not as cool as advertised, but still very pretty. There are tons of smaller shops all throughout the downtown of the city.

The city has an authentic culture and feel to it. There is a lot of Mexican heritage, being one of the closest major cities to Mexico, but there is also a distinctly Texan feel about it. This is the location of the Alamo, after all.

San Antonio has tons of unique places to visit and it is just so clean and pretty. I have loved every trip I’ve ever taken to San Antonio. It is a little touristy, but for a big city, it feels very spread out and does not overwhelm the senses.

In addition, Sea World and Six Flags Fiesta Texas are very neat and close by.

1. Fort Worth

Fort Worth takes the top spot because of its balance.

I lived there for nine months and it is truly a big city with a small town feel. It is smaller than Dallas and although it shares a metroplex, they are very different places.

Fort worth has lots of unique places to eat and it is one of the cleanest cities I’ve been to. There is some traffic occasionally, but it always clears up quickly. It usually takes no more than thirty minutes to get from one side of town to the other.

This city has a lot of country attractions if you’re into that sort of thing. I am not into country stuff, but the city still had tons of attractions that were more my style.

Overall, Fort Worth is the most balanced and best city in the Lone Star State.