Where Young Families Are Putting Down Roots In Texas

A young couple in Texas wants two things at once. They want more square footage and a school their kids can reach in a few minutes. So they skip the priciest core cities and settle in the counties ringing them. Texas led the nation in new residents last year. Much of that gain flowed to the fast-growing counties on the metro edges. The seven towns below sit in seven different counties. Each one shows families making that same trade, and each one shows a school district scrambling to keep up.

Forney, Texas

The clearest sign of Forney's boom is a foundation being poured. Forney Independent School District broke ground on Jim and Linda Jacobs Elementary in the Las Lomas subdivision in November 2025. That campus answers an enrollment that climbed from roughly 11,000 students in 2019 to more than 20,000 by June 2026. Kaufman County, which holds Forney, posted the highest growth rate of any populous county in Texas between July 2024 and July 2025, up 5.7% and tied for the second-fastest in the nation among sizable counties. Devonshire, a 900-acre master-planned community off Highway 80, ranked among the state's top-selling communities in 2025. The city issued more than 3,000 residential permits in 2024. Price does most of the persuading here. A typical Forney home was worth about $344,000 in mid-2026, roughly half what the same family would spend in Frisco up in Collin County. Highway 80 runs west toward Dallas, and Census data show more than half of Kaufman County residents work outside the county.

Manvel, Texas

Manvel grew up around a highway that leads straight to a paycheck. That road is State Highway 288, and it runs to the Texas Medical Center, one of the world's largest medical complexes and a major Houston employer. Two Hillwood communities, Pomona and Valencia, plugged their new streets directly into it. The result shows in the count. Manvel held under 10,000 people in 2020 and reached 17,261 by 2023. Alvin Independent School District serves the city and expects to grow by about 20% over the next decade, per its demographers. Its 2024 bond funds two new elementary schools and a new junior high. Barbara Bennett Elementary opened in Manvel in 2024, and the next Alvin ISD elementary is set to open in August 2027.

Liberty Hill, Texas

Liberty Hill nearly tripled in the time it takes to finish grade school. The city went from 3,646 residents in the 2020 Census to about 10,428 by 2023. Its school district has felt every bit of that. Liberty Hill Independent School District has averaged 12% to 15% enrollment growth a year, roughly 900 to 1,000 new students each fall. The district added five elementary campuses and a second middle school over that stretch. Two more elementaries, Lariat Trails and Saddleback, open in 2026 and 2027. Much of the new housing sits inside Santa Rita Ranch, a master-planned community northwest of Austin. Williamson County drew the largest numeric gain of any county in the Austin metro, and migration accounted for 81% of it.

Cibolo, Texas

Cibolo is a town built for kids, and the numbers say so plainly. More than a quarter of its residents, 27.8%, are under 18, well above the national mark of about 22%. The population itself has raced upward, from 15,349 in 2010 to 32,276 in the 2020 Census and about 37,816 by 2024. Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City Independent School District serves the city, and its enrollment has more than doubled over the past 15 years. Byron P. Steele II High School stands inside the city limits. Two job markets sit within easy reach of the new subdivisions: Randolph Air Force Base just west in Universal City, and downtown San Antonio a short drive to the southwest. The professional families settling in show up in the paycheck too, with a median household income around $122,000 in 2024.

Conroe, Texas

In Conroe the pitch is simple: the same house costs a family far less than it would a few exits south. A typical Conroe home ran about $316,000 in spring 2026, well under the $526,000 tag next door in The Woodlands. The schools give parents another reason to stay. Niche named Conroe Independent School District the best in Montgomery County in 2023, 2024, and 2025. That district enrolled about 71,700 students in 2023 and could reach 73,000 by 2031, so it keeps buying land and opening campuses. Conroe's own population has doubled since 2010 to more than 100,000, part of a Montgomery County surge that ranks among the country's fastest. New master-planned communities such as the 5,700-acre Colton keep the subdivisions coming along Interstate 45. That freeway carries commuters south toward the north Houston job corridor and the corporate campuses of The Woodlands.

Kyle, Texas

Kyle sells the Austin commute at a discount, and families keep taking the deal. The city sits at the center of Hays County, seven miles south of Austin on Interstate 35. That short drive north is the whole appeal, because a typical Kyle home was worth about $342,000 in mid-2026 against roughly $511,000 in Austin. Migration drove 82.3% of Hays County's growth between July 2024 and July 2025. Hays Consolidated Independent School District teaches more than 20,000 students across Kyle, Buda, and northern Hays County, and it keeps building to keep pace. Jobs increasingly stay in town, too. FedEx and a Lowe's distribution center run warehousing here, and Ascension Seton Hays handles the area's hospital care.

Midlothian, Texas

Midlothian lets a parent live minutes from the plant gate. Google runs a data center in town, and in March 2026 Medline broke ground on a 1.2-million-square-foot distribution center set to open in 2027. The city built its economy on cement and steel, then widened it into warehousing, distribution, and data centers, per its economic development office. Those employers are the draw, because the paycheck is earned close to home. Midlothian grew from 35,469 residents in the 2020 Census past 39,000 by 2024, and Midlothian Independent School District has expanded alongside the rooftops. Highways 67 and 287 pull additional workers from Dallas, Arlington, and Fort Worth. A typical home ran about $454,000 in spring 2026, above the statewide figure of about $303,000. That premium buys the short commute to a job in town.

Seven Counties, One Trade

Line the seven towns up and the same bargain runs through every one of them. Rice University demographer Daniel Potter tied the suburban surge to cheaper land, more housing choices, a better family quality of life, and the freedom to work from home. Forney and Conroe sell the price gap outright, while Manvel and Midlothian put the job a few minutes from the front door. Cibolo fills its classrooms with children, and Liberty Hill and Kyle pour foundations to catch the families already arriving. Texas added 391,243 residents between July 2024 and July 2025, more than any other state, and the counties in this article captured an outsized share. Kaufman, Hays, and Williamson counties keep landing among the nation's fastest-growing. As long as a house on the edge costs so much less than one in the core, that outward pull looks set to continue.