A company called 24/7 Wall St. has compiled its first annual ranking of the best-run and worst-run cities in America. 24/7 Wall Street is a Delaware corporation set up to run a financial news and opinion operation with content delivered over the Internet.  They ranked the cities by reviewing the local economies, fiscal discipline and standard of living of the 100 largest according to population to determine how well each is managed. Such specifics as crime rate, poverty rate, unemployment trends, median income, education level and credit rating were considered most heavily. 

The study's goal? Who managed their debt and resources well, and who did not. Balance was critical.  From this data, they ranked the 100 cities from the best to worst run.

It was no surprise that the best run Cities had strong employment rates and a driving industry. Six of the best run Cities were 'suburbs' of larger metropolitan areas, including Plano, Texas which is part of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area. 

9 out of 10 of the worst run cities rely on an industry that is shrinking.  A majority of the worst run cities have been experiencing issues for years.  In fact, over 1/3 of the top ten have experienced population shrinking.  That decrease in tax base while expenses remained relatively the same contributed to further decline. Here are the Best 10:

10. Plano, Texas
9.   Chandler, Arizona
8.   Scottsdale, Arizona
7.   Seattle, Washington
6.   Chesapeake, Virginia
5.   Lincoln, Nebraska
4.   Fremont, California
3.   Madison, Wisconsin
2.   Irvine, California
1.   Virginia Beach, Virginia

And the 10 Worst:

10. Hialeah, Florida
9.   North Las Vegas, Nevada
8.   Fresno, California
7.   St Louis, Missouri
6.   Stockton, California
5.   Cleveland, Ohio
4.   San Bernardino, California
3.   Newark, New Jersey
2.   Detroit, Michigan
1.   Miami, Florida

See the full report here.

In last year's STATE rankings, Texas ranked 36th.

36th. Texas

Debt per Capita: $8,711 (36th)

Unemployment Rate: 8.3% (24th)

Home Price Change (’06 – ’09): 10.4% (16th)

Median Household Income: $48,259 (25th)

---

The second most populous state in the nation, Texas scores fairly average in most categories.  There are, however, two areas where Texas placed dead last. The Lone Star State had the lowest percentage of its twenty-five and older population with a high school diploma – one in every five fails to obtain a high school education. Also, 23.8% of its population did not have health insurance, the worst rate in the country at that time.

Here is that full article.