A survey conducted this year found that just over half of North Texas residents periodically exhaust their food supply before new funds become available for groceries, while roughly three-quarters of those same respondents indicated contentment with their neighbourhoods.
Data for the findings originated with the 2026 William C. Short Quality of Life Survey, a project undertaken by University of Texas at Dallas researchers who gathered 1,933 usable responses from households across Denton, Tarrant, Collin, and Dallas counties during August before sharing their conclusions publicly on Oct. 21. Fielded each year since 2024, the survey turned this edition toward a single underlying question: what conditions draw people to put down roots in North Texas?
Questions put to respondents spanned financial strain, the cost of living, personal wellbeing, and participation in public life, with the survey drawing particular attention to artificial intelligence and the notion of the American dream as defining themes of the period. The survey's purpose, as Holmes — who leads UT Dallas' School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences — outlined, is to surface what North Texans care about most and draw community members into a shared conversation, given that how people perceive pressing issues often diverges from what the data actually show, and that reliable findings can equip leaders, policymakers, researchers, and nonprofits to make more informed decisions.
According to the survey, the bulk of renters devote no less than 30% of their take-home pay to housing costs — a threshold that qualifies them as cost-burdened — while over half indicated they periodically or frequently exhaust their food supply with no funds left to replenish it. Data gathered separately on Dallas rentals tells a similar story: of the city's roughly 304,000 renter households, about 59 percent fall into the low-income bracket and half carry housing costs that exceed what they can reasonably afford — figures drawn from the Child Poverty Action Lab's 2025 rental housing needs assessment, which further documented a gap of 46,000 affordable units for households whose earnings land at or below half the area median income.
Of the apartment complexes surveyed across Denton, Dallas, Tarrant, and Collin counties, only one in fourteen — roughly 7% — were willing to accept Housing Choice Vouchers, that same assessment found.
When survey participants ranked the pressures weighing on their neighbourhoods, the cost of everyday goods and the twin challenges of finding and affording a home placed near the top of the list. Bray, who leads both the North Texas Quality of Life Initiative and UT Dallas' Institute for Urban Policy Research, noted that job numbers and growth statistics leave out much of what shapes people's day-to-day sense of stability.
Wage growth across the Dallas-Fort Worth metro came in at roughly 3.1% year over year, according to a University of Texas at Arlington housing market study, leaving workers' earnings trailing behind the combined weight of rising costs tied to housing, transportation, insurance, and utilities — a gap that took shape even as area home prices retreated by approximately 5% through 2025.
More than half of those polled — 57% — described their feelings toward growing AI adoption as uneasy or fearful, while roughly a third, at 32%, leaned toward hopefulness or enthusiasm, according to the survey's findings. Of the age groups included in the survey, people in the millennial cohort recorded the lowest levels of enthusiasm toward AI technology.
Survey findings attributed to Bray point to a pattern among North Texas respondents: those polled drew a distinction between AI involvement in technical fields — where they expressed openness to its use in weather forecasting, scientific research, and clinical healthcare settings — and AI involvement in deeply personal domains, where they preferred reduced reliance on it for counselling, relationship guidance, mental health support, and spiritual matters. More than half of North Texans who took part in the survey expressed concern that AI would erode both interpersonal connection and the capacity for independent, original thought.
Anxieties tied to artificial intelligence, an uncertain future, and broader societal shifts all shape how people relate to each other, Bray noted, adding that attitudes captured in survey data vary across counties, racial lines, and generational divides.
Roughly half of those surveyed expressed confidence that upward mobility remains attainable and that their own prospects have outpaced those of the previous generation, yet that same share anticipated a narrowing of opportunity for the people who come after them. Over the survey's three-year run, respondents' outlook on future home values has shown a downward shift, a pattern Bray's tracking work has captured.
Survey findings he cited pointed to residents of North Texas as reporting a weaker sense of community ties and lower overall wellbeing, drawing on how people there assessed their access to opportunity, their sense of belonging, and their outlook on what lay ahead. Among those polled, a rising portion reported having little to no attachment to the area where they live.
Bray contended that as social ties weaken, meaningful interaction between people rarely takes root on its own — communities must instead weave it deliberately into the ways they come together.
Roughly one in six survey participants reported feeling they had meaningful sway over decisions made at the local government level, a figure that stands in contrast to the nearly three in four who viewed casting a ballot as a civic obligation. Bray noted that while many people feel a sense of civic duty, they question whether their individual participation actually changes anything — a disconnect that volunteer boards, community nonprofits, and local commissions are reportedly seeing reflected in lower turnout and involvement.
Traffic gridlock has grown into one of the more frequently cited grievances among North Texas residents taking part in annual polling, with nearly 12 percent naming it the single biggest drawback to their area in 2026 — up from 10.8 percent in each of the two years before — and roughly four out of every ten participants listing it among the three things they like least about their neighbourhood. Among younger cohorts, around 35% of Gen Z and millennial survey participants placed traffic within their top three concerns, a share that stood notably lower than the 48.6% recorded among baby boomers who did the same.
Four components make up the North Texas Quality of Life Initiative: a publicly accessible dashboard, an annual report, data available for download, and shorter pulse surveys distributed between reporting cycles. Survey data gathered by the UT Dallas Institute for Urban Policy Research feeds into an online dashboard designed to give the public fast, accessible access to visualised findings.
Bray expressed a hope that the survey would take root as a lasting reference point for governments, businesses, and other stakeholders navigating decisions, while the wider initiative is positioned as a vehicle for drawing people together amid what he described as growing disconnection. Organisers behind the 2026 project have set their sights on a 2027 State of North Texas Forum, envisioning a gathering where area leaders would come together to shape policy responses drawn from the research findings. The initiative, Bray explained, draws on data analysis to tackle existing challenges and guide more grounded decision-making going forward.
