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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-12-14 Euless Articleshttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/23/opinion/move-to-texas.html By Farhad Manjoo With Gus Wezerek and Yaryna Serkez Farhad Manjoo is an Opinion Columnist. Gus Wezerek and Yaryna Serkez are graphics editors for Opinion. O P I N I O N Everyone’s Moving to Texas. Here’s Why. Jon Han T he traumas of the past few years have rearranged all of our lives. Many Americans have new needs, new desires, new possibilities and new priorities. They’re looking for bigger homes, second homes or any home at all. They’re searching for work — or trying to escape work. Some fear encroaching heat, fire or flood. Others are repulsed by bitter local politics. Many simply hear the distant siren of a better life elsewhere. We’re here to help. First, we gathered data for thousands of towns and cities on more than 30 metrics, such as school quality, crime rates and affordability. Then we used that data to make a quiz: Select the criteria you find important, and we’ll show you places that might work for you. Here’s how I used it, and what I learned. New York, N.Y. Pop: 8,419,316 • $$$$ Los Angeles Pop: 3,966,936 • $$$$ Chicago Pop: 2,709,534 • $$$ Houston PhiladelphiaPhiladelphia Houston Pop: 2,310,432 • $$ Phoenix Pop: 1,633,017 • $$$ Philadelphia Pop: 1,579,075 • $$ San Antonio Pop: 1,508,083 • $$ San Diego Pop: 1,409,573 • $$$$ Dallas, Texas Pop: 1,330,612 • $$$ San Jose Pop: 1,027,690 • $$$$ I started with a list of 16,847 places that have a population of more than 1,000 people. Jobs First, I narrowed my search to places with low unemployment and high median incomes — because nobody wants to move to a place where all the businesses are closing. Lower climate risks Next, I went looking for places that seemed more likely to be spared the worst of climate changeʼs ravages — in contrast to my current home state, California. Racial diversity Like a lot of Americans, I also want to live in a place thatʼs racially diverse. Affordability Finally, I filtered out places with high housing prices. Iʼm fed up with my stateʼs impossible cost of living. For more than 100 years, California was the state everyone wanted to move to. In 1900, California had about as many people as Kansas; by 2000, it had grown twentyfold and was by far the most populous and most prosperous state. In technology, in the arts, in science, in gastronomy — around the turn of the century, the Golden State from north to south seemed on the cusp of becoming a global capital. It felt like the best place in America to chart a new path, to float what foundered elsewhere, to sip from a cup runneth over. I’ve lived in California nearly all my life, and it’s still more likely than not that I will remain here; reports of a sudden “exodus” from the state are frequently exaggerated. Still, there’s plenty going wrong — soaring housing costs, devastating poverty and inequality, and the cascading disasters brought about by a change in what was once our big selling point, the climate. Not a month goes by that I don’t wonder what I’m doing here. There’s got to be somewhere better, right? Mine is certainly a privileged flight of fancy; if I left California, I’d be one of the hordes of remote-working elites fleeing local problems and driving up house prices in once-pleasant little towns around the country. It’s a phenomenon that is the topic of much media coverage nowadays — though, in fact, mobility in the United States is inversely related to income: People suffering economic hardship tend to move more often than wealthy people. Once I had put in all my priorities, I was left with a list of cities and towns near Dallas that checked all my boxes. I was starting to see why so many people are moving to Texas. T But anyway, everyone imagines greener pastures now and then. Our quiz provides a starting point for such reveries. By scoring cities and towns, we let you filter and rank locations according to affordability, the vibrancy of local job markets, exposure to climate hazards, political and racial diversity, reproductive and transgender rights, how long you can expect to spend commuting and whether a place has lots of mountains or trees. Take the quiz Where Should You Live? As my colleagues explain in a methodology note, California does very well on many of these criteria. That’s the problem — California is so nice, nobody can afford to live there anymore. Most areas in and around Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose and San Diego fall into our search tool’s most expensive category. We label that category $$$$, though it’s not as if life in, say, Irvine or Redwood City or Anaheim is very blingy. Compared to many other places in the country, some pricey California enclaves often offer mediocre schools, not a lot of space, relatively arduous commutes and a rough forecast under climate change. As the Golden Gate shuts, the Lone Star beckons. If you’re looking for an affordable, economically vibrant city that is less likely to be damaged by climate change than many other American cities, our data shows why Texas is a new land of plenty. For the many hypothetical life scenarios I ran through our quiz, the suburbs around Dallas — places like Plano, McKinney, Garland, Euless and Allen — came up a lot. It’s clear why these are some of the fastest-growing areas in the country. They have relatively little crime and are teeming with jobs, housing, highly rated schools, good restaurants, clean air and racial and political diversity — all at a steep discount compared to the cost of living in America’s coastal metropolises. This fall, I visited Dallas and its mushrooming suburbs on a scouting mission. Tens of thousands of Californians have moved to Texas every year of the last decade. Should I? exas has been growing explosively for two decades, so its strong showing in a ranking tool for deciding where to live is about as surprising as its strong showing in a list of rodeo championships. From 2010 to 2020, the population of Texas grew by nearly four million; about 29 million people live there now. In the same period, California, which has nearly 40 million people, added just over two million. About half of Texas’ growth in 2018-19, for example, was due to what demographers call “natural increase” — big Texans making little Texans. The rest was through migration from other parts of the country and the world. People from every state move to Texas, but California contributes an outsize number of new Texans. In 2019, Californians accounted for about 42 percent of Texas’ net domestic in-migration. What do Texas cities have that other places don’t? In my searches, there were two preferences that, when combined with jobs, tended to guarantee results in Texas: racial diversity and lower climate risks. Sources: Emsi Burning Glass, National Venture Capital Association, 2015-19 American Community Survey, Moodyʼs ESG Solutions, Mapbox, OpenStreetMap. There are lots of places in America with jobs and lower climate risks or jobs and racial diversity, but if you want all three, Texas will take care of you best. Diversity is what Texas has over many cities in the Midwest or the West — places like Madison or Colorado Springs or Portland. Nearly all of Texas’ recent growth has been in populations of color, and its growth areas are as racially diverse as many places in California. Growth cities in Texas are not just racially diverse but also politically diverse, if you’re into that sort of thing. In Plano, a thriving suburb of Dallas, about 60 percent of voters are Democrats; in Menlo Park, a thriving suburb south of San Francisco, about 80 percent are — the difference between living among political allies and living in an echo chamber. Then there are Texas’ climate risks. Houston will not do well on a warming planet — it is economically dependent on the oil and gas industry and is threatened by hurricanes and a surge in sea levels. But other big cities, including Dallas and Fort Worth, face more moderate risks, especially compared to many cities in California. Yes, Texas is very hot and likely to get hotter; but if a lot of other American cities also begin to get very hot, Texas cities might not feel as overheated by comparison. In addition to the risk of heat stress, Texas also faces the possibility of water shortages, but that will be true across much of the West, including California’s population centers. What Texans will not have to worry about as much are wildfires, the scourge of so much of California, and the attendant air pollution, though experts predict increases in wildfires in Texas. It’s true that Texas’ less extreme fire risk is related to something precious about California that Texas lacks — abundant trees and mountains in major metro areas, or really any of California’s striking natural beauty. But nobody said living through climate change would be pretty. Dreaming of Dallas When I took our quiz, most of my $-$$ matches were in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. Area ofdetailGarland Climate RacialJobsrisksdiversity Match Euless 9/10 8/10 10/10 90%Euless, Texas Grand Prairie MesquiteDALLASFORT WO RTHWoodlawn, Ohio 8 9 10 90 Edgecliff Village,DeSoto981090Texas Edgecliff VillageGarland, Texas 8 8 10 87 Grand Prairie,Cedar Hill881087Texas Mesquite, Texas 8 8 10 87 DeSoto, Texas 8 8 10 87 Worse match Better match 10 MILESCedar Hill, Texas 8 8 10 87 Too expensive for me A You might argue that it’s too speculative to take into account something as broad and complex as climate change when deciding where to live. And more important, there’s no real escape from a long-term planetary disaster — even if you move to some place with lovely weather, your life is bound to be altered in significant ways as habitability shifts elsewhere on the globe. Still, living through California’s tinderbox years has convinced me to keep an eye on climate dangers; while forecasts on climate risk are inexact, making some effort to anticipate its danger when deciding where to live feels more responsible than ignoring it. And when people in California are paying a million dollars above asking price for homes in areas of high and increasing wildfire risk, isn’t that something like ignoring it? There is a concept in behavioral economics known as a “Minsky moment,” which describes when a bull market suddenly wises up to its own unsustainability, causing a collapse in prices. Jesse Keenan, an associate professor at the Tulane University School of Architecture who studies how climate change affects housing markets, told me that a Minsky moment could be coming for high-priced homes in at-risk coastal cities. As home lenders, insurance companies and other players in the real estate business begin to better understand their exposure to climate risks, they may raise premiums or force disclosure requirements that could lower home values. At the moment, buying a home in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I live, looks like a safe investment. But lately I have begun to obsess about the uncertainty built into the changing weather. What if three fire seasons from now proves to be one fire season too many — and, in a blink, the housing market into which we’ve invested so much of our future implodes? “In a way, climate change could begin to look like a foreclosure crisis,” Keenan told me. Californian will feel right at home in Dallas even before touching the ground. Like the suburbs around Los Angeles, San Diego and across the Bay Area, Dallas and other Texas metros are built on the certainty of cars and infinite sprawl; from the air, as I landed, I could see the familiar landscape of endless blocks of strip malls and single-family houses, all connected by a circulatory system of freeways. I rented a sweet pickup truck to get around Dallas, but that was the extent of my taste of local flavor. Texas has barbecue and California has burritos, but the American urban landscape has grown stultifyingly homogeneous over the past few decades, and perhaps one reason so many Californians are comfortable moving to Texas is that, on the ground, in the drive-through line at Starbucks or the colossal parking lot at Target, daily life is more similar than it is different. My guide through the Dallas suburbs was Marie Bailey, a real estate agent who runs Move to Texas From California!, a Facebook group that helps disillusioned Californians find their way to the promised land. Bailey is herself a Californian. She and her family moved in 2017 from El Segundo, a beach city next to Los Angeles International Airport, to Prosper, a landlocked oasis of new housing developments north of Dallas. In El Segundo, the median home list price is $1.3 million; in Prosper, it’s less than half that. And in Prosper, the houses are palatial, many of them part of sprawling new developments that brim with amenities unheard-of in California. “It’s like living in a country club,” Bailey told me, which sounded like hyperbole until she showed me the five-acre lagoon and white sand beach in the development where she and her husband purchased a home. Their house is 5,000 square feet; they bought it for about the same price for which they sold a home they owned in Orange County, which was 1,500 square feet. Bailey’s move gets to the heart of the great California-Texas migration: housing. As she drove me around Dallas’s suburbs, Bailey would point out cute house after cute house now occupied by a Californian. I had been talking about the idea of choosing between California and Texas, but for many people moving here, Bailey suggested, there really was not much choice at all — it was simply that, economically, they could not make their lives work in California, and in Texas, they could. I visited Dallas two weeks after Texas’ bounty-hunter abortion law went into effect, and a week after Greg Abbott, the governor, signed a bill that severely restricts voting access. Attractive as Texas’ real estate might be, I was beginning to regret this whole idea: Twitter was alive with calls to boycott Texas and here I was — a lefty New York Times columnist —  preparing to laud the livability of a state that seemed to be lurching to the fringe right. I suspect that politics isn’t a primary factor in most people’s moving decisions, but politics is never far below the surface of any discussion comparing California to Texas. In the news media, the gulf between California’s politics and Texas’ politics is usually described as so profound as to be unbridgeable. And it’s true that there are certain issues on which there is little room for compromise. If you select transgender rights or reproductive rights as important to you in our quiz, Texas will plummet in your results. No one in my family is transgender nor likely to be in need of an abortion soon, but could I live in a state that maintains restrictions with which I profoundly disagree? Could I live in a state where the governor tried to ban mask mandates? Itʼs still Texas Texas has some of the nationʼs most regressive policies when it comes to abortion access and transgender rights. Sources: Human Rights Campaign, Guttmacher Institute, Caitlin Myers. For many, though, the political calculus can be more complicated. For one thing, rapid growth is rapidly altering Texas’ politics. As people pour in, Texas keeps getting more diverse, younger and more liberal. One reason Republicans may be rushing to limit voting access is out of fear of being overrun. “Don’t California My Texas!” is a popular refrain. There is an added nuance, which is that actually living in a place is different from observing its politics from afar. On an electoral map, Texas looks inhospitable to anyone on the left. But its biggest cities and suburbs largely voted blue in 2020, and as a practical matter they may feel no less welcoming to people on the left than some of the most liberal of coastal metropolises. My hotel in downtown Dallas was within a short walk of several gay bars; sex shops selling packers, which are often used by trans men; smoothie shops; and purveyors of CBD remedies of all kind. Black Lives Matter signs dotted front yards. Not everyone was wearing a mask, but lots of people were — many more than I was expecting, and certainly enough that I never felt out of place donning one. Bill Fulton, the director of Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research and a former Californian, told me that rather than hot-button political issues, a more salient problem for Californians moving to Texas is the paltriness of government services. Texas spends far less on welfare benefits than California, and it did not expand Worse score Better score Transgender rights Abortion rights Medicaid under Obamacare. “Californians are used to a high level of public services, and Texas is a lower-amenity state,” Fulton said. The poor services and reactionary state politics bother me greatly, but I can see how, for a lot of people, low taxes and more living space could be inducement enough to overlook Texas’ apparent downsides. As I toured houses in Dallas, I knew that I wouldn’t be moving to Texas anytime soon — but mainly because I’m not in a place in life where I have to. If I were 10 years younger, if my kids weren’t settled at their schools and my wife wasn’t tied to a job in California, I’d feel a lot differently. Texas, now, feels a bit like California did when I first moved here in the late 1980s — a thriving, dynamic place where it doesn’t take a lot to establish a good life. For many people, that’s more than enough. O P I N I O N Where would you ideally live? Office Hours With Farhad Manjoo Farhad wants to chat with readers on the phone. If you’re interested in talking to a New York Times columnist about anything that’s on your mind, please fill out this form. Farhad will select a few readers to call. The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. Weʼd like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: letters@nytimes.com. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. Farhad Manjoo became an Opinion columnist for The Times in 2018. Before that, they wrote the State of the Art column. They are the author of “True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society.” @fmanjoo • Facebook A version of this article appears in print on , Section SR, Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: Is Texas the New California? If you werenʼt tied to a particular location, where would you want to live and why? What are your top reasons for wanting to live there? * Continue » Euless PD detective killed by suspected drunk driver while driving with family By David Sentendrey Published November 27, 2021 Euless PD detective killed by suspected drunk driver while driving with family Police said an off-duty Euless PD detective was killed by a suspected drunk driver following a crash in Lake Worth Saturday afternoon. LAKE WORTH, Texas - An off-duty Euless Police Department detective is dead after authorities said his vehicle was hit by a suspected drunk driver in Lake Worth Saturday afternoon. Detective Alejandro "Alex" Cervantes served the Euless community for nearly seven years. Police said a woman and two kids in Cervantes' vehicle were also injured. According to Lake Worth police, the fatal crash happened just after 1:30 p.m., near Boat Club Road and Rocky Point Trail. Investigators found that a drunk driver ran a red light and broadsided Cervantes’ vehicle, which had his family inside. Cervantes was pronounced dead. A woman and two children were rescued from the vehicle. Police said the woman is in critical condition, while the two children were taken to a hospital with serious injuries. Dylan Molina, 26, has been charged with intoxication manslaughter and three counts of aggravated assault. Police said Molina tried to flee the scene. A group of people who witnessed the crash ran to help. "I just booked it, you know, crossed the street," Brandon Williams recalled. "First thing I did was take off running over there and try to help the family out," Anthony Oeltjen said. "Sometimes I just wish people would stop and think about their decisions before they do them." "It was one bad decision that led to another bad decision that culminated in a loss of life," Lake Worth Police Chief J.T. Manoushagian said. Police say Molina was drinking at a Fuzzy’s Taco Shop in Lake Worth. He hit a car while leaving, then sped away. The fatal crash happened just down the street. Police said he was driving at a high rate of speed when he ran the red light. He tried to run away after the crash, but neighbors tackled him and held him until police arrived. Officers smelled alcohol on his breath and said he tested significantly above the legal limit. "You have a family, a generation that’s changed forever because of that series of poor decisions," Manoushagian added. Witnesses said the driver was aggressively kicking a squad car door while inside. "He was so belligerent drunk that he didn’t want to go to jail and I don’t know if he was thinking about the decisions that he’s made," Oeltjen recalled. "Why he was trying to kick the door open or what it was." Police said Molina’s decision to drink and drive took an innocent life and may have destroyed the lives of others. "First time I’ve ever seen anything like that and the last time I ever want to see anything like that," Oeltjen said. "You know, as a father, I don’t ever want to see anything like that," Williams said. The road was shut down for several hours as police continued their investigation. Procession held for Euless PD detective killed by suspected drunk driver By David Sentendrey Published November 28, 2021 Euless detective killed in DWI crash remembered Police in the Fort Worth suburb of Euless are mourning the death of a detective. He was killed in a car collision and the other driver was arrested. EULESS, Texas - There was a solemn procession Sunday as a hearse carried the body of Euless Police Department detective Alex Cervantes, who was killed by a suspected drunk driver while driving with his family. "Alex served honorably with our police department for almost 7 years," Euless Police Chief Mike Brown said. Cervantes was off duty Saturday, traveling with his wife and two children, when their car was hit by suspected drunk driver at the intersection of Boat Club Road and Rocky Point Trail in Lake Worth. Cervantes was killed, while his wife was injured and is in critical condition. The children were also hospitalized, but their conditions are said to be less severe. "Words fail when it’s just something needless and tragic like this," Brown said. Police arrested Dylan Molina and charged him with intoxication manslaughter. Investigators said he ran a red light and crashed a Jeep into the Cervantes family’s car. Police said Molina was drinking at a Lake Worth restaurant Saturday and hit a car in the parking lot while leaving. He sped away from that wreck before crashing into Cervantes’ car. Molina then tried to run away, but police said he was tackled by several neighbors who held him down until officers arrived. "There are good people in this world and good people know right from wrong and they saw a wrong and they were not going to let that get away," Davis said. Preliminary results from police show Molina’s blood-alcohol content was twice the legal limit. "There’s just no excuse for this anymore," Davis said. Euless police said everyone at the department knew Cervantes. "If you wanted a friend, he was your friend," Davis said. "You know, there’s 150 people who work in this building and we are a family." Officers from several agencies formed Sunday’s procession. Euless police officers were comforted by the support of their extended police family. "Please, keep Alex’s family, friends, colleagues and the Euless community in your thoughts and prayers," Davis said. North Texas Police Officers Escort Body Of Euless Detective Killed By Drunk Driver To Funeral Home By Caroline Vandergriff November 28, 2021 at 10:00 pm EULESS (CBSDFW.COM) – Dozens of officers from North Texas police departments escorted the body of a Euless officer from the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Officer in Fort Worth to a funeral home in Hurst on Sunday night. Police escort Det. Alex Cervantes body to a Hurst funeral home. (Credit: Caroline Vandergriff/CBSDFW.COM) Detective Alejandro “Alex” Cervantes was hit and killed by a suspected drunk driver on Saturday afternoon, according to investigators. His wife and children were also injured in the crash. “I don’t know that there are enough words in the English language to convey the heartbreak you have,” Euless Police Chief Mike Brown said. “You can try, but words fail when it’s just something needless and tragic like this.” Cervantes had been with the Euless Police Department for nearly seven years and served with the El Paso Police Department for 8 years before that. “Just a great man,” said Chief Mike Brown. “If you’re an old guy like me and you have kids, you want your son to grow up like that. If you’re a kid, you want him to be your dad.” Cervantes was off-duty when police say an alleged drunk driver ran a red light and slammed into his car around 1:30 p.m. in Lake Worth. He died at the scene, and his wife and two children were taken to nearby hospitals. Police say Cervantes’ wife had surgery overnight and is still in critical, but stable, condition. As of Sunday evening, the couple’s two children are also in the hospital recovering from serious injuries. Investigators say the man who caused the crash, 26-year-old Dylan Molina, has been charged with one count of intoxication manslaughter and three counts of intoxication assault. Molina reportedly had a strong smell of alcohol on his breath and was acting intoxicated. According to police, he tried to run away from the scene but some neighbors managed to hold him until officers arrived. “I know there are good people in this world, and good people know right from wrong,” said Chief Brown. “They saw a wrong and they were not going to let that get away. The Euless Police Department will be forever in their debt and the Euless community as well.” Chief Brown says his officers are devastated by the loss. Cervantes was well-liked and respected in the close-knit department. Police honor Euless detective killed by drunk driver (Credit: Caroline Vandergriff/CBSDFW.COM) “If you could count him as your friend, you were a very fortunate person,” the chief said. It’s unclear right now when exactly funeral services for Cervantes will be held. This North Texas suburb is the best place in the country to live, according to the New York Times Euless is more, apparently. Author: Jake Harris Published: 5:02 PM CST November 28, 2021 Updated: 7:50 PM CST November 29, 2021 EULESS, Texas — The best place to live in Texas — nay, the country — isn't Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Austin or anywhere out in west Texas, according to the New York Times. It's Euless. That's according to "Everyone’s Moving to Texas. Here’s Why," a new opinion column from the Times' Farhad Manjoo, who looked at a lot of data and applied a strict set of parameters to determine where would be the best place in the country to move to. Seven of the top 10 locations are in Texas, and all of those Texan cities are in North Texas. Besides Euless, which got Manjoo's top marks in affordable cost of living, high- paying jobs, racial diversity and low climate risks, other North Texas cities that made the list include Edgecliff Village, Garland (sadly misspelled in Sunday's NYT print edition as "Gardland"), Grand Prairie, Mesquite, DeSoto and Cedar Hill. As of 2021, Euless had a population of just over 58,000 people, according to the latest data from the North Central Texas Council of Governments. Of its 10,371 total acres, a little more than 3,000 fall within DFW International Airport. It's also home to some of the largest populations of Tongan and Nepalese people outside of their native countries. According to Manjoo's criteria for a great place to live (you can set your own criteria and take the NYT's interactive quiz here), most anywhere on the Interstate 35 corridor in Texas would do just fine for a California ex-pat, but it's North Texas that stands out. Manjoo writes: "As the Golden Gate shuts, the Lone Star beckons. If you’re looking for an affordable, economically vibrant city that is less likely to be damaged by climate change than many other American cities, our data shows why Texas is a new land of plenty. For the many hypothetical life scenarios I ran through our quiz, the suburbs around Dallas — places like Plano, McKinney, Garland, Euless and Allen — came up a lot. It’s clear why these are some of the fastest-growing areas in the country. They have relatively little crime and are teeming with jobs, housing, highly rated schools, good restaurants, clean air and racial and political diversity — all at a steep discount compared to the cost of living in America’s coastal metropolises." Credit: New York Times screenshot But despite high-profile figures like Elon Musk and Joe Rogan moving to the Lone Star State, the "Don't California My Texas!" crowd shouldn't worry. Manjoo notes that reports of a sudden "California Exodus" have been greatly exaggerated, but that Texas — especially its suburbs — is appealing to many people because of how similar it is to other places, including California. "As I toured houses in Dallas, I knew that I wouldn’t be moving to Texas anytime soon — but mainly because I’m not in a place in life where I have to. If I were 10 years younger, if my kids weren’t settled at their schools and my wife wasn’t tied to a job in California, I’d feel a lot differently," he writes. "Texas, now, feels a bit like California did when I first moved here in the late 1980s — a thriving, dynamic place where it doesn’t take a lot to establish a good life. For many people, that’s more than enough." As for Euless, it is now the No.1 place to live in America, at least by this metric. Maybe next year's Arbor Daze will feature a few new Texans. Tarrant County COVID deaths jump back up to 12 with 573 new cases on Wednesday Stefan Stevenson, Fort Worth Star-Telegram 5 days ago It's the most COVID deaths reported since 12 were reported on Nov. 24. The latest COVID-related deaths include a Forest Hill man in his 50s, an Arlington man and woman in their 50s, two Fort Worth men in their 60s, a Euless man in his 60s, an Arlington woman in her 70s, two Fort Worth men in their 80s, an Azle man in his 80s, an Arlington man in his 80s, and a woman from rural Tarrant County older than 90. All 12 had underlying health conditions, according to officials. The county has reported 371,238 COVID-19 cases, including 4,906 deaths and an estimated 360,723 recoveries. Note to readers: Tarrant County does not release data on the vaccination status of recently diagnosed patients or deaths. Officials have released this type of data once in June and it showed that nearly 100% of the new cases reported at the time (from May to mid-June) were in people who were not vaccinated. Further, county officials said fewer than 200 of those new cases at the time were in previously vaccinated Tarrant residents. COVID-19 hospitalizations Hospitalized COVID patients decreased by 18 to 230 in the latest seven-day moving average. The pandemic high was 1,528 on Jan. 6. COVID-19 hospitalizations decreased to 5% from 6% of the total number of beds in Tarrant County and make up 6% of the 3,872 occupied beds. The rate was at a pandemic-high 38% on Jan. 10. Confirmed COVID patients decreased to 5.30% from 5.33% of all available hospital beds in the North Central Texas Trauma Region, which includes 45 counties (divided into three regions). The rate has been below 15% since Oct. 1. Hospital beds Tarrant County's hospital bed occupancy increased to 87% from 83%, according to county data. Available hospital beds decreased by 154 to 594. The pandemic low was 360 on Sept. 20. ICU beds Adult ICU bed occupancy decreased to 89% from 90%. The rate was last at a pandemic-high 99% on Oct. 7. Ventilator use increased by four to 243. Patients are using 32% of the 761 ventilators in the county. Positivity rate The COVID-19 positive test rate for Tarrant County increased to 7.55% from 7.36% in the latest available seven-day average data. The rate was last at a pandemic-high 30% on Jan. 7. Vaccination data Children ages 5 and older are now eligible for vaccination, so the following vaccination percentages have been altered by the Texas Department of State Health Services to reflect that larger population. According to Texas DSHS, 63.% 83of Tarrant County residents 5 or older have received at least one dose of the vaccine, and 56.22% of residents 5 or older have been fully vaccinated. DSHS also reports that 90.36% of Tarrant residents 65 or older have received at least one dose, and 83.67% of residents 65 or older have been fully vaccinated. More than 68.96% of Texas residents 5 or older have received at least one dose, according to DSHS. The rate of fully vaccinated Texas residents 5 or older is at 59.12%. Tarrant County is offering free COVID-19 vaccines and testing at locations throughout the area. Tarrant County COVID-19 deaths by city Here are the total pandemic-related deaths in Tarrant County by city through Dec. 1: — Fort Worth, 2,039 — Arlington, 925 — Mansfield, 186 — North Richland Hills, 178 — Bedford, 144 — Haltom City, 124 — Hurst, 112 — Rural Tarrant County, 112 — Euless, 110 — White Settlement, 99 — Grapevine, 92 — Keller, 83 — Azle, 70 — Benbrook, 70 — Watauga, 63 —Grand Prairie, 55 —Saginaw, 53 —Crowley, 52 —Richland Hills, 47 —Sansom Park, 39 —Forest Hill, 38 —Southlake, 36 —Lake Worth, 28 —Kennedale, 22 —River Oaks, 22 —Colleyville, 21 —Everman, 17 —Pelican Bay, 10 —Westworth Village, 10 —Blue Mound, 9 —Burleson, 9 —Edgecliff Village, 8 —Pantego, 8 —Unknown, 6 —Lakeside, 5 —Dalworthington Gardens, 2 —Flower Mound, 1 —Haslet, 1 Condition Improving for Wife of Euless Police Detective Killed in Lake Worth Crash Det. Alejandro 'Alex' Cervantes was off-duty and driving with his wife and two sons when they were hit by a reportedly drunk driver Saturday By Ben Russell and Lili Zheng • Published December 2, 2021 • Updated on December 2, 2021 at 6:59 pm The wife of Euless Police Det. Alejandro "Alex" Cervantes, who was hit and killed in a hit-and-run crash with a suspected drunk driver Saturday, is improving in the hospital, according to the Chief of the Euless Police Department. Cervantes' wife has not yet regained consciousness since the crash, but her condition has been upgraded from critical to stable, according to Euless Chief Mike Brown. He said she is expected to make a full recovery. The couple's two sons, who were in the car at the time of the crash, are both with family members, Brown said. They are aware that their father was killed. Brown told reporters on Thursday that he will make sure the Cervantes' boys know exactly who their father was. "An old guy like me would like to have a son just like him. Just the kind of guy that came every day with a true heart for service for his fellow man, a person who I don’t think ever met a stranger, and if you were a stranger you weren’t for long," Brown said. "He would go out of his way to make sure that he knew you, connected with you on some level, just a great guy. If you were a kid you’re very fortunate to have a dad like him." The crash happened at about 1:33 p.m. at the intersection of Boat Club Road and Rocky Point Trail in Lake Worth, Euless police said. Police said the driver of a Jeep Wrangler, identified as 26-year-old Dylan Molina, ran a red light and struck a Chevy Impala driven by Cervantes. Brandon Williams works across the street at a car service shop and ran over as soon as he heard the loud crash. "My instinct was just to run. Run as I could to help them out," Williams said. "Run over there and help them out and do what I can. I was praying everyone was okay, and it just didn’t turn out that way." Williams and his coworker Anthony Oeltjen said they were among the first on the scene before ambulances arrived. "Me and Brandon went around the vehicle to the passenger side trying to rip the door open, trying to check on the mother," Oeltjen said. "Finally, we were pulling the doors so hard, we actually started bending the frame of it and a guy ran over with a window breaker, broke the glass out." The entire situation hit close to home, Oeltjen added. "Next day, I called my family and told them I loved them. It could have been anybody," he said. Police said Molina was charged with intoxication manslaughter, accident involving death and three counts of intoxication assault. His bond was set Monday at $300,000. Cervantes served the Euless Police Department for nearly seven years, prior to which he worked eight years for the El Paso Police Department. Euless police have set up a way for the community to help Cervantes' family financially through the Euless Police Department's Benevolent Organization. Lt. Brenda Alvarado with the police said people can access the fundraiser by scanning a QR code or a link. "It’s important for people to utilize the one that’s been set up by the police department because everything that goes into it goes directly to the family," Lt. Alvarado said. "There’s no fees taken off it, so every dollar they share with the family is going to go straight to them." No decisions have been made about services and honors at this time, according to Chief Brown. Fort Worth's buzziest neighbor (sort of) crowned best U.S. place to live by New York Times By John Egan Nov 29, 2021, 12:07 pm Developments like Glade Parks have made Euless a shopping and dining destination. Photo courtesy of Glade Parks So long to that old, unfortunate nickname "Useless." The city of Euless is now officially Fort Worth's hottest neighbor, having just been crowned The New York Times' best place to live in the U.S. — well, sort of. Times opinion writer Farhad Manjoo and several colleagues recently collected data for thousands of towns and cities covering more than 30 metrics, such as school quality, crime rates, and affordability. They then used that data to create a quiz allowing readers to determine where they should live based on the criteria they select. When Manjoo picked criteria for himself — jobs, climate change, racial diversity, and affordability — Euless rose to the top, claiming the No. 1 spot. Another Fort Worth suburb, Edgecliff Village, ranked two places behind, at No. 3. Nestled in between them was Woodlawn, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati. Those three communities were a 90 percent match for Manjoo’s criteria. And five more Texas communities — all in Dallas-Fort Worth — tied for an 87 percent match: Cedar Hill, DeSoto, Garland, Grand Prairie, and Mesquite. (Notice that Flower Mound, Frisco, and Plano — the usual cities that tend to steal a lot of the spotlight when it comes to North Texas communities appearing on the seemingly endless slew of best-places-to-live lists — failed to make this one.) Both Euless and Edgecliff Village earned a score of nine out of 10 in the jobs category. Edgecliff Village edged out Euless in the climate risks column (nine versus eight, respectively), and both scored 10 out of 10 in the racial diversity category. Cedar Hill, DeSoto, Garland, Grand Prairie, and Mesquite notched identical scores in Manjoo’s three categories: eight for jobs, eight for climate risks, and 10 for racial diversity. Two non-Texas cities round out Manjoo’s list: Brooklyn Center, Minnesota (a Minneapolis-St. Paul suburb), and Forest Park, Ohio, a Cincinnati suburb. For the list, Manjoo sorted affordable communities by assigning one or two dollar signs (out of a possible four). All 10 communities on the list received one or two dollar signs, but Manjoo didn’t specify the dollar signs attached to each of the 10 “winners.” Obviously, Manjoo’s ranking is subjective. If you take the quiz, your results could be markedly different from the ones Manjoo, who lives in Northern California, came up with. But in general, Manjoo’s ranking sheds a positive light on DFW’s quality of life. The opinion piece laying out Manjoo’s thoughts about the best places to live carries this headline: “Everyone’s Moving to Texas. Here’s Why.” (As if we needed The New York Times to drive even more out-of-staters to Texas.) “For the many hypothetical life scenarios I ran through our quiz, the suburbs around Dallas — places like Plano, McKinney, Garland, Euless, and Allen — came up a lot. It’s clear why these are some of the fastest-growing areas in the country,” Manjoo writes. “They have relatively little crime and are teeming with jobs, housing, highly rated schools, good restaurants, clean air, and racial and political diversity — all at a steep discount compared to the cost of living in America’s coastal metropolises.” That’s the kind of glowing language you might see on the websites of DFW chambers of commerce — language that could entice even more Californians and other out-of-staters to land in the Lone Star State. “Texas, now, feels a bit like California did when I first moved here in the late 1980s — a thriving, dynamic place where it doesn’t take a lot to establish a good life. For many people, that’s more than enough,” Manjoo writes. But back to Euless. Anyone who's watched the business boom the last few years could tell it was heating up. The Glade Parks development, in particular, has become a prime destination for restaurants and retailers. Here's Manjoo's complete top 10 list from The New York Times: 1. Euless 2. Woodlawn, Ohio 3. Edgecliff Village 4. Garland 5. Grand Prairie 6. Mesquite 7. DeSoto 8. Cedar Hill 9. Brooklyn Center, Minnesota 10. Forest Park, Ohio The New York Times said it: Euless is America’s best place to live FWBP Contributor December 10, 2021 City of Euless By John Fletcher Euless Mayor Linda Martin – an eternal optimist who never reads The New York Times – is glad to compliment that publication on its good judgment. The Times recently named Euless, Texas as the best place to live in the United States, based on a variety of factors that include the cost of living, jobs, racial diversity, and climate. “I attended the HEB (Hurst Euless Bedford) Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Thursday, where the program featured the Harmony Group from Euless Trinity High School,” says Mayor Martin “As I scanned across the stage, the students singing so beautifully looked like United Nations representatives, and we’re so proud to have such a high level of diversity.” The mayor had already been scouting the group because she was ringing the Salvation Army bell Saturday at the local Kroger at 1060 North Main. Rather than simply ring the bell to earn shoppers’ attention, she recruited four Euless Trinity High School band members to harmonize with Christmas music for shoppers. Passionate – that’s another word Mayor Martin uses with great pride. Residents of Euless are passionate about volunteering to serve in their community, and they adore how families engage through local parks and sports programs, as well as the Senior Center, and the Euless Family Life Center. The quality of life is exceptional, which is one reason why a Fortune 500 company, U.S. Concrete, chose several years ago to relocate from Houston to Euless. The company continues to be impressed with the overall sense of community and caring. Euless captured evaluators’ attention for several reason. High on the list was access to quality transportation since Euless is on the western border of much of DFW Airport. In addition, high-volume traffic moves along Airport Freeway and State Highway 121, which borders Glade Parks, a source for plentiful shopping. Euless is highly regarded for the quality of its local streets and for the smartly located fire stations that serve its residents. “One of the driving factors for Euless to be such a welcoming community is that we genuinely like one another. We welcome the diversity that includes over 50 different host nationalities. That unity is seen in Euless Trinity High School, whose Trojan football team is regularly listed among Texas’ elite programs and has been ranked as high as #2 in the nation in the past, as per USA Today.” From festivals to celebrations and schools, Martin and her city council celebrate their sense of community, which paints Euless with a broad brush of many colors. North Texas attracted the attention of the judges, with a total of seven cities named among the top 10. In addition to Euless at #1, Edgecliff Village is #3, Garland is #4, Grand Prairie is #5, Mesquite is #6, DeSoto is #7, and Cedar Hill is #8. The New York Times has learned what we Texans have known for decades: Texas – and North Texas in particular – is an amazing place to live, work, and play. John Fletcher is the CEO of Fletcher Consulting, a local marketing and public relations firm.