TYLER, Texas — What’s one thing that Tyler has that Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin don't? It’s a distinction from USA Today claiming the Rose City as the best city to move to in all of Texas!
"So when I saw the article I was like ‘oh my goodness how exciting for little old Tyler to be mentioned.’ I think sometimes we can get forgotten about, and this was the perfect time to say ‘hey we’re still here!’. Anyway, it’s a great fun feeling around the community today for sure," said Sheridan Smith, Visit Tyler vice president of marketing and communications.
Smith and the folks at Visit Tyler are proud after Tyler has been recognized as the top destination to move to in the Lone Star State.
USA Today considered things like quality of schools, activities offered, walkability, life expectancy, crime rates, cost of housing and more to rank the Rose City at number one and people are taking notice.
Dee Martin, Realty Group RE/MAX Alight team lead, has worked as a realtor in Tyler for 11 years and has seen firsthand the migration of people to East Texas.
"I think a lot of people that are retiring are looking to move somewhere are looking at things that we just have. I mean it’s affordable, there’s great health care here, we have colleges here so there’s like retirement, and there’s also college and kids and family," Martin said.
According to the US Census Bureau, Tyler’s population was less than 97,000 people in 2010, but that figure jumped to nearly 110,000 in 2022.
That’s on-par with the state – Texas had the second-highest net gain in terms of population in 2022, gaining more than 120,000 new adult residents.
The good news for those folks or anyone looking to make the move to the Rose City, there’s plenty of good stuff to look forward to.
"The zoo is about to open its South America exhibit, we have an airshow that’s coming in October, we have Texas Rose Festival, Red Dirt is in just a couple months, the eclipse is less than a month away. So there’s so many fun things and new things that are coming and I say just stay tuned because there’s a lot on the horizon for sure," Smith said.