Living in Atlanta vs Living in Houston
Atlanta, Georgia vs Houston, Texas. They say everything is bigger in Texas, and that is certainly true about Houston. It dwarfs Atlanta in terms of both physical size and population, but what else is there to know about these two great American cities? They say everything is bigger in Texas. Is that true?
Hi, I’m Tim Trevathan with Tim Trevathan Homes and Keller Williams Realty. As a local Atlanta realtor, I help people move to the North Atlanta area from all over, including Texas.
If you are headed to Atlanta from anywhere near Houston, you may be wondering how Atlanta compares. Or, maybe you’re headed from Atlanta to Houston. Or, perhaps you are on the hunt for a new home state and have Texas and Georgia on your list of possibilities and want to learn more about these two iconic cities.
Either way, I’m glad you are here and if you are headed to Atlanta, I’d love for you to give me a call or send me an email. My contact info is on the screen below. Helping families find a home they will love never gets old and I’d love to help that happen for you and your family.
Also, if you decide you are moving to Atlanta, go check out some of my other videos. I’ve done videos on several of the North Atlanta suburbs that hopefully will be helpful as you narrow down your search area.
Okay, time to get down to business. Atlanta vs Houston.
Let’s start with location. You probably have at least a general idea of where each of these cities are, but here’s a quick refresher.
Atlanta is the capitol city of Georgia and if you divided Georgia into 4 squares, it is in the upper left square. The northern part of Georgia is mountainous, and Atlanta is about an hour south of the mountains.
Depending on which beach you go to, Atlanta is between 4-6 hours away from the beach. If you head east to Tybee Island, Georgia or Hilton Head Island, SC it will take you about 4 hours, and if you head south towards Destin, Florida, it will take about 5-6 hours depending where exactly you are headed.
Houston is not the capitol of Texas but is the largest city in the state. Located in the Southeast corner of the state, Houston sits on Galveston Bay and is a mere 50 miles from the Gulf of Mexico.
Houston is close to the beach but is hours and hours from the mountains. Texas is a HUGE state, and the closest mountains to Houston are the Ozark Mountains, almost 10 hours away. Big Bend National Park is only an 8.5 hour drive from Houston, and is certainly worth a visit but has much more of a desert landscape with the mountains not nearly as lush and green as those in the Ozarks.
It take a lot more planning to get to the mountains for a weekend if you live in Houston if you live in Atlanta, and in Houston you definitely don’t have the option of a daytrip to the mountains.
This is a good segue into topography. If you live in Houston, or have ever visited, you know that it is flat. Flat, flat, flat. That is great if you want a level yard, not so great if you want some variety in the landscapes you see each day or enjoy training on hills during your daily run.
Unlike Houston, Atlanta has a lot of variety: There are flat areas, rolling hills, and areas with steep drop offs. You can find a home with pretty much any sort of back yard you want. You can have a flat yard perfect for play, gardening, or a pool. You can have a gently sloped yard, or you can have a steep, wooded yard if you want lots of privacy.
Okay, everyone loves to eat right? Let’s talk about food. Atlanta is in the South. We have sweet tea, fried chicken, barbeque, and all the southern comfort food you could want.
Houston is in Texas, the home of all things brisket and barbeque. Also, no city does Tex-Mex like Houston. Once you eat Tex-Mex here, nothing else quite compares.
If we look beyond the regional cuisine, both cities have great international food scenes. In Atlanta, you can find food from almost all over the globe. Buford Highway is a great place to start; chances are that if a particular cuisine is in Atlanta, you’ll find it there. There is also a wonderful Korean food scene in Duluth, an Atlanta suburb.
The same is true of Houston, and to an even greater scale just because of how much larger it is than Atlanta. One thing you’ll find in Houston that you won’t find in Atlanta, at least not that I know of, is a fusion of Vietnamese cuisine and Cajun flavors. Viet-cajun crawfish are a particularly popular dish on the Houston food scene.
Both cities have a thriving food scene, which is awesome!
Earlier I said that they say everything is bigger in Texas. Well, its true. Houston dwarfs Atlanta both in terms of square miles and population. Let me show you the numbers.
The Metro Houston area has a population of just over 7 million people. Metro Houston’s population is roughly equivalent to 2/3 of the population of the entire state of Georgia. In contrast, Metro Atlanta has just over 5 million people.
Inside the Houston city limits, the population is 2.3 million people in 665 square miles, compared to only about 500,000 inside Atlanta city limits, a much smaller 136 square miles.
When you look at the metro areas, Houston sprawls out over 10,000 square miles in comparison to Atlanta’s 8,300 square miles. That suburban sprawl means both cities have traffic and lots of it. I suggest deciding how much time you are willing to spend on your daily commute and then draw a circle around your job and looking for a home inside that circle. A cross-town commute is no fun in either city.
Both cities are car-centric and life is difficult if you don’t own a car, or at least have access to one.
Let’s move to sports. Both cities have a lot to offer sports fans. Professional baseball, football, basketball, and men’s soccer teams call both cities home. Houston also has a professional women’s soccer team and Atlanta has a professional women’s basketball team.
Whether or not you’ll be a fan of the teams, well, that is up to you and where your sports loyalties lie.
College football is also hugely popular in both cities, even more popular than professional football.
In Atlanta, the local team if you will is the Georgia Bulldogs, with Athens just a short 72 miles from downtown Atlanta. Georgia Tech is in Atlanta but has a fairly small fan base in the city.
In Houston, the local Houston Cougars are a popular team, with support for the Texas A&M Aggies edging out support for the Texas Longhorns.
No matter where you live, you need a job. Both cities have diversified economies, which is good news for job seekers. A large industry in Houston is oil and gas, thanks to the numerous oil rigs off the coast of Texas out in the Gulf of Mexico. If you are in the oil and gas field your chances of finding a job in Houston are much higher than they are here in landlocked Atlanta.
Houston is home to numerous other industries though, and both cities have thriving healthcare hubs, financial firms, large school systems, hospitality industries, and pretty much any other industry you can think of.
The Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston is the largest children’s hospital in the entire United States and is part of the Texas Medical Center, the largest, get this, the largest medical center in the entire WORLD. So, yes. If you are looking for a healthcare job, you might want to think about looking in Houston. Once again, everything is bigger in Texas.
While hospitals here in Atlanta may not be the biggest, we certainly do have a lot of them. Emory, Northside, Piedmont, WellStar, and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta are all hospital systems with multiple hospitals in the city that employ a lot of Atlantans.
Both cities also have a lot of education jobs. The Houston Independent School District is the largest in Texas, and the 7th largest in the country with about 216,000 students. In the Metro Atlanta area, the Gwinnett County School is the largest in Georgia with 178,000 students and is the 13th largest in the country. Yes, once again, Texas is bigger.
But, Gwinnett’s School of Mathematics, Science and Technology is the 9th ranked high school in the whole country, which is pretty impressive!
Which city has better weather?
Both cities have long, hot, humid summers. Here in Atlanta, we also have a short but absolutely beautiful spring and fall and a mild winter. Houston also has 4 distinct seasons temperature wise, but while Atlanta adds pollen season to spring, Houston adds hurricane season to fall.
Located on the bay and not far at all from the Gulf of Mexico, low-lying Houston is flood prone and is at risk for flooding from hurricane-associated storm surges.
Here in Atlanta, flooding is thankfully something that we don’t really have to deal often at all and when there is flooding, it is very limited and not widespread.
Neither city gets a lot of snow, with Atlanta averaging 1.4 inches a year and Houston averaging 0 inches a year – snow is rare in Houston, but they do get it from time to time.
Atlanta gets a few more sunny days than Houston, 217 days per year compared to 204 days per year and gets about 1.5 inches of rain a year less than Houston.
Last but not least, let’s talk about cost of living. Where will your dollar stretch further?
The cost of living is about 12% lower in Houston than it is in Atlanta. This is primarily because of a difference in housing costs. Housing is about 28% more expensive in Atlanta than in Houston.
Salaries for similar jobs tend to be a little bit lower in Houston and that reflect that difference in cost of living. Also, it’s worth noting that Texas has no state income tax and Georgia does.
Now, one thing to keep in mind is that while Texas has no state income tax, property taxes in Houston tend to be a bit higher than they are here in Georgia. So, you’ll want to crunch the numbers when deciding which city holds the financial advantage for your family.
Let’s look at a real life example. Suwanee is a popular suburb about 30 minutes north of Atlanta and Cypress is a popular suburb about 30 minutes north of Houston. When I looked at homes currently for sale, both suburbs had around 80 homes available with a handful under $600,000, the majority of homes in the $700,000-900,000 range and a large selection of homes up into the millions.
I chose two homes that are as similar as I could make them, both are absolutely gorgeous, very similar in square footage, lot size, and construction date and were listed just this week.
The home in Suwanee has 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, is 4,637 square feet, was constructed in 1996 and sits on a 0.88 acre lot. is listed at $850,000 and in 2021, property taxes were $5,027.
The home in Cypress has 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, is 4,703 square feet, was constructed in 1998 and sits on a 0.89 acre lot. It is listed at $920,000 and in 2021, property taxes were $12,417.
So, you can see that there is a huge difference in property taxes for very similar homes. Higher property taxes are often the downside to no state income tax, so crunch the numbers before you buy: in Texas, double check your property tax and in Georgia, double check your take-home pay.
To wrap it up, Houston and Atlanta are both great cities with a lot in common. Houston is larger, far larger, and thus has more suburbs to explore, more night life, and a bigger food scene.
But Atlanta’s food scene is wonderful too and Atlanta offers easy access to the mountains and has a lot more topographical diversity than coastal Houston.
Both cities love their professional and college sports and have a ton of diversity when it comes to their economies.
Bottom line: both cities have a lot to offer! If you are thinking about making a move to Atlanta, I would love to talk with you, learn what you are looking for, and help you find a great home. Give me a call or shoot me an email today!
