Houston earns bragging rights as one of America's most family-friendly cities

HOUSTON, Texas -- Anyone who's grown up in Houston will say it's a great place to call home. Now a new survey confirms the city's bragging rights as one of the top spots in the country to raise a family.

Homes.com ranked the top 25 metropolitan areas in the U.S. based on their overall "family-friendliness" quotient. Houston comes in at No. 3 on the list. At the top of the list is Dallas (No. 1), and not far behind is San Antonio (No. 5).

Cities were chosen based on key considerations, including crime rate, cost of living, availability of child care services, average commute times, school (K-12) quality, and park acreage per capita. The markers were chosen for the ways they contribute to both a child's development and a family's quality of life. A weight was assigned to each factor to value their relative levels of importance - school quality had the highest, while commute times had the lowest.

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