Austin Suburbs Among America's Fastest Growing

Cedar Park, Pflugerville and Round Rock placed among Forbes magazine's fifty fastest growing suburbs in the United States from 2000-2006. Among the many Texas cities on the list, Round Rock was 12th, Pflugerville was 7th and Cedar Park was 3rd. Forbes discussed some of the tradeoffs of unregulated suburban sprawl: low housing costs, but high transportation costs - providing the example that in Houston, transportation costs are the No. 1 household expense, according to the Brookings Institute. KVUE noted that Cedar Park was responding to the rapid growth by building more roads and a baseball complex, along with a new gloriously suburban city hall.

The new Round-Rockians and Pflugervillains were probably attracted by the kickass skate park and high foreclosure rate. Cedar Park is popular with the Family Circle crowd, which named it as one of the ten best towns for families, explaining that "To raise funds for the anticrime group National Night Out, residents last year held 41 block parties, Texas BBQ included."

Image from Microsoft Live (ten points to the first person to correctly guess whether this is Cedar Park, Pflugerville or Round Rock without clicking the link).