America's 15 Best Bargain Cities

ABC News:

To determine which U.S. cities are the best bargains, Forbes looked at the country's 50 largest U.S. metropolitan statistical areas and metropolitan divisions -- geographic entities defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget used by federal agencies in collecting, tabulating and publishing federal statistics.

Read the whole story: ABC News

Comments

[TXfemmom]

10:58 AM on 05/24/2009

I live in the Houston area and housing is inexpensive here. Of course there is the traffic issue, pollution issue, heat and humidity issue, illegal immigrant issue, redneck issue, Republican issue, and the occasional hurricane.

However, Austin is FABULOUS. It is fun, fun, fun and liberal, even though the capital is there, and the people are nice, housing is pretty affordable, and they have wonderful parks, weird things, music, and it is clean.

[rascalov]

07:57 AM on 05/24/2009

This list is absurd. Five cities in Texas? Wash DC a bargain???
Again a complete joke. You want bargains, try Pittsburgh, Buffalo, etc.

[PDXTransplant]

09:42 PM on 05/23/2009

Texas can blame GW for all the Texas bashing on this story. I have other reasons for not liking the place. Some times I wonder if I was just a 1/2 inch taller if I would still be living there. I doubt it.

[MsLiz]

12:57 AM on 05/24/2009

Texas has a minimum height requirement?

[Ladyrantsalot]

09:16 PM on 05/23/2009

Except for Austin and Cambridge, I don' think any of those cities have it over Chicago or Evanston, IL. Property here is still affordable. Does Dallas have: the Lyric Opera? Chicago symphony? great jazz and blues? boffo chamber music? theaters like Steppenwolf or Goodman? a subway and light rail system? a phenomenal restaurant scene? phenomenal comedy scene? the Art Institute of Chicago? Lake Michigan? I mean, who the heck would want to live in a cultural desert like Phoenix or Dallas? (except, of course, people escaping the Chicago winters? Hey, you can't have everything).

[Pyfagorus]

09:32 PM on 05/23/2009

I don't know about Phoenix, but Dallas does actually have a pretty top-notch symphony. Its music directors have included Antal Dorati, Eduardo Mata, Andrew Litton, and guess who...Georg Solti.

[MsLiz]

12:59 AM on 05/24/2009

The measure is affordability, not desirability.

[Ladyrantsalot]

04:08 PM on 05/25/2009

See second sentence.

[brandnewstuff]

07:09 PM on 05/23/2009

Austin Texas is NOT all that - It is a great network of theives- The keep ASustin Weird is just a Ploy for the Drug game- aka state agents who are violting innocent people and we all know what agency deploys those " States of Minds" Do not be fooled

[DubyaGump]

06:36 PM on 05/23/2009

Washington D.C. at number 3?, it may have jobs, but is hardly affordable, I paid almost twice as much for a house in the D.C. area, than what I would have in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Food clothing, entertainment, everything is expensive here!

[ItsyBetsy]

05:31 PM on 05/23/2009

We're America's kidnapping capital, Mexican gangs are pretty much taking over the whole place, but hey, it's cheap to live here!! (Phoenix)

[MajorKong]

04:41 PM on 05/23/2009

I'll take Austin or maybe San Antonio but Dallas and Houston do nothing for me.

[StatueOfLiberal]

07:26 PM on 05/23/2009

I'm a born and bred Texan, and I'd say you have it about right.

[TXfemmom]

10:59 AM on 05/24/2009

I ama Texan transplant and Austin is the place. I love it when we can visit there.

[naschkatze]

04:29 PM on 05/23/2009

I'd rather throw in the towel than move to Texas or anywhere in the South.

[Viledems]

10:40 PM on 05/23/2009

And they call people from the south bigots and narrowminded????????????

[crablover]

04:16 PM on 05/23/2009

You could not pay me enough to live in Texas! I turned down two job offers in the Dallas area in the past five years. Sorry, I couldn't stand being surrounded by narrow minded, jingoistic Texans. Let them secede!

[2garen]

05:04 PM on 05/23/2009

There are a whole bunch of texans that are progressive, believe me, I have a home north of SA and bunch of my coworkers and neighbors can not stand what is going on with the few loud mouth ignorant voices the world views as Texans. The progressives do not have to scream at the top of their lungs to get their point across.

[Pyfagorus]

06:27 PM on 05/23/2009

A lot of folks around here like to jump on the Texas-bashing bandwagon. It's really unfortunate that there is so much prejudice about Texas and Texans thanks to certain politicians (George Bush, Tom Delay, John Corynyn, et al.) and the odd news story that puts the state in a bad light.

Austin is a very liberal city, and the other cities have a strong liberal contingent, just like every big city in the nation. Progressive voices from Texas have included Ann Richards, Molly Ivins, Barbara Jordan, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Bill Moyers, Jim Hightower, Bill Hicks, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, and the Dixie Chicks. And Lyndon Johnson, for all his faults, brought our nation civil rights laws, food stamps, Medicaid and Medicare, federal student aid, and a host of other progressive programs that we can hardly imagine doing without now.

[MajorKong]

07:42 PM on 05/23/2009

It's even tougher now that Molly Ivins is gone.