Austin’s #10 Overall Livability still runs on sun, sweat and outdoor space. The city ranks #9 for Nature & Parks – from Zilker’s green sprawl to the Barton Creek Greenbelt’s limestone escapes – while #15 Sights & Landmarks keeps weekends booked and the most restless locals from leaving.
The economy is the real story. Austin ranks #6 in our overall Prosperity Index, driven by #4 Innovation, #6 Labor Force Participation and #10 Large Companies. The Austin–Round Rock–San Marcos metro added 28,500 jobs in 2024, average weekly wages hit $1,683 in Q2 2025, and the five-county region is closing in on 2.6 million residents. Housing has cooled: the typical home sits at under $425,000, down approximately 6% year over year, and average rent has settled around $1,900. For a city that spent years pricing people out, that’s a meaningful exhale.
The skyline hasn’t chilled out, however. Waterline, a 1,025-foot mixed-use tower anchored by 1 Hotel Austin, is pushing skyward on Rainey toward a late-2026 debut. Tesla is adding more than 5.2 million square feet at Gigafactory Texas over the next few years, and Samsung’s Taylor semiconductor plant plans mass production by the end of the decade. The capital of cool has quietly become a capital of manufacturing muscle.
Austin-Bergstrom handled nearly 21.8 million passengers in 2024, and an anticipated $5 billion expansion will add 32 gates. The convention center reopens in 2028. By then, the city around it will look entirely different.