If you’re considering moving to Houston, here’s a few reasons to help you make up your mind. We’ve got news for you: the American Dream is alive and well, and you’ll find it thriving in Houston, Texas. There’s a true laissez-faire ethos here where individuals are supported adequately but not interfered with by the powers that be.

1. Jobs, sweet jobs

After New York, Houston is home to more Fortune 500 companies in the whole of the USA – many of them oil and gas companies which account for 3-4% of the city’s employment opportunities. It’s also a city full of jobs in technology and business services – including aerospace of course – and its massive shipping port ensures huge trade opportunities with the rest of the world.

Houston also has low unemployment (3.7% at time of writing), and offered up more new jobs in the recent years (309% more) than any other city in the States.

2. Everyone else is moving to Texas

People are relocating to Texas in droves, with Houston gaining over 35,000 new people in the last financial year and second only to NYC in terms of national population growth. Time to jump on the bandwagon, cowboy.

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3. Diversity

Forbes magazine named Houston the coolest city in the USA in 2012 and is still in the top five this year. It’s got tons of green spaces and a truly international food scene with something to please every palate.

The city is now more racially and ethnically dynamic than New York, with an Anglo population of just under 40% compared to NYC’s 49%. While the US is known for being the country of immigrants, move to Houston and you’ll find that 46% of the population speaks a language other than English at home, with 38% speaking Spanish.

That comes as little surprise since 71% of the city’s foreign born population are from Latin America; 19% are from Asia. Colour and creed are irrelevant here, just as the Declaration of Independence set out.

Not only are all men created equal, but women, too. Their mayor, Annise Parker, is openly gay and married her partner Kathy Hubbard in January 2014.

4. It’s the home of NASA

It’s called Space City for a reason, people. International astronauts still train here for their space missions, and what other city was able to have its name broadcasted from the Moon first?

5. Even the healthcare is big in Houston

The city is home to the largest concentration of healthcare organisations in the world, including University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Centre, which is aiming to cure five types of cancer. The Texas Medical Centre, also in Houston, is larger than the city of Dallas, further proof that everything is bigger in Texas.

6. No income tax

Texas has no income tax, and collects and average $3,500 per resident in other taxes per year – less than half what you would pay living in New York, where income tax is payable, amongst other taxes. Other Sun-Belt states are proving popular with Americans and expatriates alike; Arizona and South Carolina operate the same sort of taxation rules.

7. Affordable house prices

House prices are comparably low here too, with the median home price to annual household income at just 2.9%. San Francisco’s ratio, to take an example, is 6.7%. Blue-collar workers in San Francisco and LA accept a life of making ends meet and renting forever, but Texas dwellers get a much better chance at living a middle-class existence, and that’s why people continue to move here, and natives tend not to leave.

8. Once a Texan, always a Texan

Nearly 75% of born Texans still live in Texas. A pretty good testimonial, if you ask us. Houston, we certainly do not have a problem.