Houston Tops Forbes Ranking for Young Professionals Relocation

From Forbes.com via the Houston Business Journal:

Houston topped this year’s Forbes list of best cities where a recent college graduate can get a strong start on a high-powered career. The magazine placed the Bayou City at No. 1 for its “business-friendly environment and abundance of oil money,” considering it is home to 14 of the country’s largest companies. Only New York City, fourth on the list, had more big employers, according to Forbes.

Houston also had high average incomes and a concentration of graduates from elite colleges — and not just from local Rice University — but from across the country. Texas fared very well in the studdy, both Austin and Dallas also securing a spot in the Top 10 — Dallas at No. 6 and Austin rounding out the list at No. 10.

To come up with the list, Forbes looked at all of the Metropolitan Statistical Areas across the U.S., and then eliminated cities with fewer than 1 million people, and cities where Moody’s Economy.com predicts job growth will be negative over the next year. Next, each city was ranked based on its current unemployment rate, then criteria was factored in such as what people earn, the ability to stretch a dollar in the city and how many public companies called that city home. Then Forbes counted how many members of the Class of 2000 at Princeton University, Harvard University, Stanford University, Duke University, Rice University and Northwestern University were currently living in each city.

Cities rounding out the list included Washington D.C. at No. 2 followed by Minneapolis-St. Paul, Boston, Seattle, Denver and Atlanta.

Houston Named as #4 Best City for Retirees by Forbes Magazine

The Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown metropolitan area ranks No. 4 on a new list by Forbes of America’s 40 “recession proof” retirement cities.

Forbes said it considered such factors as average income for seniors, current and expected home prices, job-growth predictions through 2014, the cost of living and median monthly housing cost.

The Houston area ranked 33rd for home price change predicted for 2009-2014, 21st for number of sunny days, 18th for income of residents 65 and older, 15th for median home price, 13th for median monthly housing cost and fourth for both cost of living and job growth predicted for 2009-2014.

Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, Ga. took the top ranking and was followed by Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, and Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Fla.

Austin-Round Rock shared the No. 5 slot with St. Louis, Mo., while San Antonio came in at No. 10.

New York finished last among the 40 cities, with Milwaukee and Boston rounding out the bottom three.