I just found out that Money magazine's best (small) places to live has Sugar Land as #3 and Columbia as #4. So how do they compare?
-population
Sugar Land, TX 79,876
Columbia/Ellicott City, MD 96,831
(More folks, so maybe more stuff to do.)
-median household income (per year)
Sugar Land, TX $92,149
Columbia/Ellicott City, MD $79,783
(okay, I guess ex-Congressman Tom DeLay really knew how to funnel the money to his constituents or else Ellicott City antique stores, these days, are selling mostly knockoffs Made in China)
-sales tax
SL, TX 8.25%
C/EC, MD 5.00%
(Hmm, I'll bet lotsa Sugar Landers go shopping outta state or buy online.)
-state income tax rate (highest - lowest bracket)
TX n/a
MD 4.75%-2.00%
(That's got to be one of the main reasons why people would move to a state with such a hot climate.)
-auto insurance premiums (avg. for the state)
SL $2490
C/EC $2,813
(More folks, so more accidents.)
-media home price
SL $214,330
C/EC $329,000
(I'll bet these figures are outta wack. I don't know about prices in SL, but the one for Columbia / Ell. City seems rather low. Can you even find something for 329K?)
-job growth (2000-2005)
SL 30.53%
C/EC 11.58%
(Yipes! Does that SL percentage include jobs for illegals? What're they doin' down there? Must be warehouses full of illegals counting all the money that DeLay has squirreled away.)
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But you know, Sugar Land probably has lots more Asians than Columbia / Ellicott City. In which case, the former would have the edge when it comes to Asian groceries and restaurants. (But if you're Korean, you'd want to live in Ellicott City.)
I dunno, #4? You'd think the traffic would knock it down five hundred places.
Posted by: malnurturedsnay at July 18, 2006 02:16 AMYeah, well, apparently, the same goes for Sugar Land.
The guy who writes the blog in the Houston Press (free weekly) grew up in Sugar Land and is of So. Asian extraction. He had this to say about the following passage in the Money magazine writeup that tried to explain the area's attraction to Asian immigrants:
"The area’s heat and humidity tend to remind Asian immigrants of home, and in the ’80s, as Sugar Land became less a sleepy small town and more a land of good jobs and affordable housing, more Asians moved in."
-- As someone born to Asian immigrants, and as someone who grew up in Sugar Land, I have to take issue with that statement. It’s SL’s insane traffic that reminds my dad of his hometown.