Living in Highland Park, Texas

Highland Park is a small, independent town of just 2.2 square miles completely surrounded by the city of Dallas, 4 miles north of downtown. Together with neighboring University Park to its north, it forms the Park Cities, an enclave within Dallas County that operates its own city government, its own school district, and its own police department entirely separate from the City of Dallas. US-75 (North Central Expressway) runs along its eastern edge, Preston Road bisects it north–south, and Mockingbird Lane marks its southern boundary. The Katy Trail, one of Dallas's most beloved urban greenways, follows the Missouri-Kansas-Texas railroad bed along the eastern border.

Location is Highland Park's most underrated asset. In under 15 minutes you can be at work in Uptown, on the elevator in a downtown office tower, or at a gate at Love Field. The Dallas North Tollway is a quick hop north and west, putting Addison and the Galleria Corridor inside 20 minutes. That proximity to the entire Dallas employment core is something you simply can't replicate in North Dallas or any of the northern suburbs, and it's a legitimate reason families in demanding careers choose to pay the premium here rather than add a 40-minute highway commute to every work day.

Commute Times from Central Highland Park

If school quality is your top priority and budget is not the binding constraint, Highland Park ISD is in a category of its own among Texas public school districts. In 2025, HPISD became the first district of its size, 5A/6A enrollment, to earn the top TEA score among all comparable districts statewide, finishing with a 96 out of 100 and an "A" rating. Niche gives the district an A+ across the board: overall, academics, college prep, and families. This isn't marketing language, it's a consistent pattern across multiple independent rating systems, year after year. Highland Park HS ranked #1 among Texas open-enrollment public high schools. For families where the school district is the purchase driver, Highland Park ISD is the answer.

Top Campuses in Highland Park ISD

Highland Park is fully built out, there's no new construction here, no master-planned communities breaking ground, no future phases. What exists is what you're buying into: roughly 2,500 single-family homes on 2.2 square miles of tree-canopied streets between the Katy Trail and Preston Road. The architectural diversity is genuine, Tudors, colonials, Spanish Mediterraneans, Georgian estates, and a handful of modern builds sit side by side on streets lined with 60-year-old oaks. Price ranges are wide within the town, but the floor is high. Here are the neighborhoods families most often ask about.

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Highland Park is not a cost-of-living value play, the Affordability Score of 44 is the honest signal. This is one of the most expensive residential communities in Texas. The tradeoff families accept is explicit: the highest-rated public school district in the state, 4 miles from downtown Dallas, on streets that have barely changed in 50 years. If the calculus works for your family, it works. If you need it to pencil on an affordability basis, look at Allen, Plano, or Prosper, you'll get A-tier schools at a fraction of the price.

Property Tax Breakdown (2025–26 Rates)

Highland Park itself has almost no large employers, it's a residential enclave, not a commercial district. The commercial centers that residents commute to are overwhelmingly in Dallas proper, and the proximity to the downtown and Uptown employment cores is one of the strongest practical arguments for the premium. Families tied to the Dallas financial, legal, medical, or technology corridors can reduce commute time dramatically compared to living anywhere north of the Park Cities.

Highland Park is one of those places where the lifestyle matches the price, but it's a very specific lifestyle. It's not resort-style amenities and master-planned conveniences. It's quiet streets shaded by 70-year-old trees, kids walking to school or biking to a park, Saturday mornings on the Katy Trail, and the kind of neighborhood where people know each other's names. The community is tight-knit, the schools are genuinely excellent, and the proximity to the city means you never feel trapped in a suburb. What you give up is space, diversity, and the lower price points that most of DFW's family suburbs offer.

Highland Park is car-dependent by standard metrics, a Walk Score of 43 reflects the residential-only character of most of the town. But the Katy Trail and Turtle Creek corridors give it more on-foot access than that number suggests, particularly for residents in the eastern half of the town. The caveat: Highland Park is 2.2 square miles with no big-box retail, no grocery superstores, and no dense commercial strip. You drive for almost everything practical. What you get in return is access to every Dallas dining, arts, and recreational amenity within 15 minutes, and some of the best-maintained park land per capita in DFW.

Walkability & Transportation Scores

Walk Score and Bike Score: Walk Score Inc. · No transit score available for Highland Park.

Parks, Trails & Green Space

For a 2.2-square-mile town, Highland Park's park system is exceptional. The town consistently ranks #1 in DFW for parks per resident, a function of the Turtle Creek greenbelt and the town's deliberate investment in maintained public space. The azalea-lined stretch of Turtle Creek Boulevard alone draws visitors from across Dallas each spring.

Recreation Centers & Facilities

Youth Sports & Organized Recreation

HPISD varsity athletics at Highland Park High School are competitive at the 5A level and a significant part of community identity, Friday night football under the lights at Highlander Stadium draws a real crowd. For younger children before varsity eligibility, organized sports run through local clubs and the town's recreation programs.

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Highland Park's violent crime rate is among the lowest in the Dallas area, a function of both the town's independent police department and the socioeconomic profile of the community. NeighborhoodScout reports a violent crime rate of approximately 0.57 per 1,000 residents, meaning the chance of being a victim of violent crime in Highland Park in a year is roughly 1 in 1,752. The property crime picture is more nuanced: rates are influenced by Highland Park's adjacency to busy Dallas corridors, and property crimes (vehicle break-ins, opportunistic thefts) do occur, particularly near commercial areas. Niche gives the town a "B" for crime, one of the stronger grades in Dallas County.

Sources: Niche.com 2026 · NeighborhoodScout · FBI UCR (most recent available year)

Highland Park is one of the thinnest real estate markets in DFW, only 75 single-family homes changed hands in the past 12 months across the entire town. That's a function of both the price level and the ownership culture: people who buy here tend to stay for decades. The market is balanced (3.7 months supply), which means neither buyers nor sellers hold extreme leverage. When a well-priced home in the right neighborhood hits the market, it moves. Overpriced listings sit, even here. Median DOM is about 50 days, which reflects the selectivity of the buyer pool at $3.7M+. Condos also trade, with 10 units sold in the past 12 months at a median of ~$1.2M, primarily in the high-rise buildings along the southern edge near Mockingbird.

In Highland Park, the heart of the market is the luxury band: 100% of homes sold in the past year landed at $1M and up, where a median of about $3.6M buys roughly 4,548 square feet. True entry-level inventory under $400K is scarce here. About 100% of sales were $700K or more, so move-up and luxury buyers have real selection.

A few more numbers worth knowing if you are weighing an offer in Highland Park. Over the trailing 12 months, single-family homes sold for a median of $3.58M and an average of $4.26M, which works out to about $787 per square foot. Homes here sold for roughly 93.2% of their original list price, which gives you a sense of how much room buyers have typically had to negotiate. As of the latest data, about 28 single-family homes were actively listed. These are NTREIS figures (the price metrics are 12-month rolling, inventory is current active supply), and your own price per square foot and negotiating room will vary by neighborhood, age of home, and finish level.

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Source: NTREIS via suburb-profiles.json · Updated recent

Data from our annual suburb profiles update. Updated: -