Denton, Texas

In a recent analysis of U.S. cities that qualify as “boomtowns,” Denton finished number 2 among 500 different cities ranked. Based on positive trends in employment, new business, population growth, and household income, Denton kind of has it all in a reasonably sized package. A college town with a smashing music scene, it also has affordable housing with outsized average incomes and falling unemployment rates.

Denton is one of the fastest growing cities in the country, and if someone tells you that doesn’t carry any headaches with it, we’d say they’re crooked as a barrel of fish hooks (Texas saying). Traffic here can be brutal, and the roads are under heavy construction, it seems, all the time, so just be prepared to have to navigate that whole scene. The pandemic reduced much of this, but Texas went back to work in person more than most places, and traffic seems to be picking back up where it left off pre-2020.

Denton is an active college town and a jumping downtown serves both the college kids and young professionals. It has been rated near the top of “America’s Most Underrated Party Towns”. With two Universities inside the city limits, things can get a bit nuts near the town’s square where the majority of the bars and restaurants sit. All that said, Denton also has plenty of suburban neighborhoods where you can steer clear of the revelry and raise your little ones in peace and quiet. Denton also hosts a large Arts and Jazz Festival and has a growing music scene, so if you want to hang in the more “burb-style” neighborhoods most of the time, but some downtown for an occasional night out, Denton has you covered.

If you're interested in details on all the happenings, check out the Denton calendar of events.

We highly recommend visiting Denton and staying in the community in a VRBO rather than a hotel to get a feel for what it's like to live among the locals. You can receive discounted fares on travel via our partnership with Expedia as well.

Any city with as big a college presence will have a sizable portion of its local economy driven by jobs and revenue from the universities. University of North Texas and Texas Women’s University have combined populations of 57,000 and grew during the pandemic, so they have an outsized influence on the fortunes of Denton. Combine that with a robust economic development program and beyond education, you also get:
-Retail, Sally Beauty calls Denton home
-Manufacturing: Tetra Pak, Mayday, ESAB Victor, and many others are headquartered in Denton.
Finally, Peterbilt Motors is here, along with lots of Healthcare that round out the growing economy. If you’re looking for work, you could hardly do better than Denton.