Sugar Land Ranks As One Of The Best Places To Live

[KimberlySayWhat]

The 10 best places to live in the U.S.:

http://www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=5158853&nav=1TjD

[PureAuteur]

Sugar Land is ranked #3 in the country actually, according to the Channel 2 website.

http://www.click2houston.com/family/9528344/detail.html

[TJones]

It's by Money magazine. I beleive they equate the "best" with the amount of Millionaires in the population living in the city limits. 3/4 of all the Houston sports teams players live in Sugarland.

[RedScare]

It's by Money magazine. I beleive they equate the "best" with the amount of Millionaires in the population living in the city limits. 3/4 of all the Houston sports teams players live in Sugarland.

Yes, "best" is clearly subject to interpretation.

[texas911]

Yes, "best" is clearly subject to interpretation.

Especially when you don't agree with it. But if you do then its iron clad!

http://biz.yahoo.com/special/besttowns06_article3.html

3. Sugar Land, TX.

Population: 75,800

Typical single family home: $170,000

Est. property taxes: $4,500

Pros: Diversity; affordable housing

Con: Like humidity? A lot?

When Fred Fogarty was transferred to Houston in 1999, he and his wife Susan checked out every city in the area before deciding to live in Sugar Land. Now they can't imagine being anywhere else. Fred, an investment adviser, has since set up his own business in the city too.

"We like to do family-oriented things, and we wanted to be outside the hustle and bustle of Houston but still have the big-city feel," says Fred, 40. "It's an amazing spot."

That's a sentiment shared by many in Sugar Land, one of the country's more diverse communities. The area's heat and humidity tend to remind Asian immigrants of home, and in the 80's, as Sugar Land became less a sleepy small town and more a land of good jobs and affordable housing, more Asians moved in. Today the city is almost a quarter Asian, and Sugar Land is home to mosques as well as Hindu and Buddhist temples.

The city's head count has tripled since 1990, and Mayor David Wallace expects it to hit almost 200,000 within the next 10 years. That expansion will follow a detailed plan; no area will join without utilities and services already in place.

To limit the impact of sprawl, Sugar Land requires brick storefronts as well as extensive landscaping around shopping centers.

Though town namesake Imperial Sugar Co. recently closed its refinery, the city is teeming with software, engineering and energy firms such as Fluor Corp. and Unocal. Sugar Land recently revamped its airport to better accommodate corporate jets.

The booming school population has led to crowding, but the district churns out dozens of National Merit semifinalists each year, and SAT scores are consistently higher than state and national averages. And in few desirable cities does a buck go so far: $200,000 buys a roomy house in a landscaped neighborhood with a community pool.

"We were thinking that this would be a nice place to have children," says Suja Pappan, 37, a local teacher who moved here with her husband Phillip nine years ago. The couple now have a two-year-old son.

"The schools are exemplary," Suja says. "Houses are reasonable, and there are all different varieties of people here. It's a good fit."

Edited July 18, 2006 by texas911

[Beltway]

I guess "commute time" wasnt part of the calculations.

[webdude]

I guess "commute time" wasnt part of the calculations.

I think it was, just not towards the bull's eye

[ProHouston]

I guess "commute time" wasnt part of the calculations.

Sugar Land is actually one of the closest in bedroom communities of Houston. It's commute time on an already expanded 59 (out to Hwy 6 that is) is low compared to its neighbors in The Woodlands, Katy, Pearland, and the NW. This is especially true for those working in Uptown. Sugar Land is the closest suburb to that area, a short 15-20 minute drive away.

BTW, you can vote for Sugar Land as the best city at the bottom of the CNN Money home page.

Edited July 18, 2006 by ProHouston

[houstonmacbro]

The 10 best places to live in the U.S.:

http://www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=5158853&nav=1TjD

eek! sugarland? c'mon now...

[houstonfella]

Sugar Land - the sweetest city in Texas that has no Equal.

[TheNiche]

Sugar Land is actually one of the closest in bedroom communities of Houston. It's commute time on an already expanded 59 (out to Hwy 6 that is) is low compared to its neighbors in The Woodlands, Katy, Pearland, and the NW. This is especially true for those working in Uptown. Sugar Land is the closest suburb to that area, a short 15-20 minute drive away.

BTW, you can vote for Sugar Land as the best city at the bottom of the CNN Money home page.

Yeah, Fort Bend County is probably the most connected suburban part of the Houston MSA. Bear in mind the Fort Bend Tollway, Grand Parkway, and the often-overlooked US 90-A minifreeway.

[Heights2Bastrop]

Do you think it is rated so highly because it has had such great Congressional representation?

[dalparadise]

Let's see...Sugar Land has a lot of what you people whine about missing in Houston -- like walkable districts where living spaces sit on top of street-level retail, underground utility lines in most areas, major national, regional and local retail outlets, varied architecture, including a large area of the town that is composed of intact 1930s woodframe bungalows, plans to convert an old industrial site into retail and lofts, major headway on a high-density, live-work-shop develiopment that rings an existing campus of a major employer, a new city hall that is appropriately stately, celebrity residents and some big-ass mansions, mature trees in most neighborhoods, an airport with a longer runway than any at Hobby, access to uptown and the Galleria comparable to Downtown's, in terms of minutes driving, etc.

I'm sure people in Sugar Land like it just fine. It doesn't seem like such a bad place to me. I might live there one day.

[KinkaidAlum]

SugarLand is one of the better suburbs in the Houston area, but it's still just a suburb.

Maybe in 30 years it will feel more authentic and less stale but that is the feeling I am left with when I visit friends down there or "hang out" at the Town Center.

[MarthaG]

IMHO, Sugarland is on the news too often...and not in a good way.

[swzine]

Do you think it is rated so highly because it has had such great Congressional representation?

The number 3 ranking was paid for by Tom Delay. HAHA

As for the comments about commute - it was taken into consideration, you just have to remember that a lot of other major cities - especially those in the northeast - have even worse traffic. I grew up in the Philly area. The lack of good highways would make it take an hour to drive 15-20 miles into the suburbs, Most of the roads were 2 lanes with traffic lights the whole way. The old cities just can't fit the good highways. And the few places that have decent highways - like DC for example - just have terrible traffic anyway. Plus people forget that some of us live and work in Sugar Land. My commute is 3 miles. That's why I chose to live in Sugar Land.