City comparison · 3,030 km apart · two countries, two currencies

Vancouver vs San Antonio: which should you move to?

Vancouver or San Antonio? Housing, rent, crime, climate, income, taxes and transit, side by side, from each city's own published figures. Written for someone deciding where to live, not for a ranking.

Skyline of Vancouver
British Columbia · Canada

Vancouver

Photograph: Skyline of Vancouver · Quintin Soloviev · CC BY 4.0 · source
The San Antonio skyline from the south
Texas · United States

San Antonio

Photograph: The San Antonio skyline from the south · Medialecent · CC BY 4.0 · source
The short answer

The two housing bills are in different currencies, but held against local pay they are far apart. Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $5,239 CAD a month in Vancouver, roughly 70% of the metro's 2020 median household income, and about $2,116 USD on the Bexar County median sale price, roughly 38% of the City of San Antonio's 2024 median, on homes that cost 12.1 and about 4.2 times those incomes; the San Antonio price is the county's, read against the city's pay. The tax sits in opposite places: British Columbia takes about $20,500 CAD of $100,000 in income tax and 0.336% of a home's value, while Texas takes no income tax and an effective 1.56%, $4,390 a year on the county median. San Antonio has the steadier labor market, 4.7% metro unemployment in July 2026 on an unadjusted count against 6.0%. Vancouver has the transit, the larger airport and the lower homicide rate, 26 in 2025, about 3.5 per 100,000 with 11 of them from one attack, against 106 in San Antonio, about 6.8. Choose Vancouver to live without a car, for coverage that comes with residency and an 18.2 C July. Choose San Antonio to buy a house on a salary and find work, with a flood policy on top.


Vancouver prices are in CAD and San Antonio prices are in USD. The tables leave them in their own currency and compare ratios and rates instead; a conversion would be stale by the time you read it.

Population
MeasureVancouverSan AntonioAdvantage
City population662,248 (2021)1,548,422 (2025)Not directly comparable
Metro population3,088,036 (2025)2,813,140 (2025)Not directly comparable
Five-year growth
Growth is pressure on rents and roads as much as it is opportunity, so it is reported without a winner.
4.9% (2016-2021)8.0% (2020-2025)Not directly comparable
01: Housing

What a home costs in each

The figures the two cities' rent-versus-buy and mortgage calculators run on, read from the same tables.

Housing costs
MeasureVancouverSan AntonioAdvantage
Benchmark home price
MLS® HPI or equivalent benchmark. Lower is treated as the advantage, which is the buyer's view rather than the owner's.
$1,088,800 (July 2026)$280,999 (August 2026)Not directly comparable
Detached house benchmark$1,822,900$249,206Not directly comparable
Apartment or condominium benchmark$688,000$167,371Not directly comparable
Two-bedroom rent$2,638/mo (average, October 2025)$1,179/mo (median, September 2026)Not directly comparable
One-bedroom rent$1,860/mo$957/moNot directly comparable
Two-bedroom rent against median income
A year of two-bedroom rent as a share of the median household income below. A household paying the median rent out of the median income is a fiction, but it is the same fiction in both columns and it crosses currencies.
35.2% of a year's income21.4% of a year's incomeSan Antonio
Mortgage payment on the benchmark, 20% down
25 years in Vancouver against 30 in San Antonio, each compounding the way its own country's lenders do. The rates are not a spread you can shop: they are what each market charges.
$4,744/mo at 4.34%$1,500/mo at 7.03%Not directly comparable
Price to household income
Benchmark price divided by the median household income below. A ratio is comparable across currencies; the dollars are not.
12.1×4.2×San Antonio
Property tax on the benchmark home
The effective rate on market value, which is what the two rates have in common and what the Advantage column is decided on; the bills are in each city's own dollars.
$3,663/yr (0.336%, 2026)$4,389/yr (1.562%, 2025)Vancouver
Transfer tax on the benchmark home
Compared as a share of the price. Where the seller pays it, it is a cost of leaving rather than arriving.
$19,776 (buyer pays)NoneSan Antonio
Rent control
A cap protects a sitting tenant and does nothing for the next lease, so neither column is simply better.
2.3% guideline (2026)Forbidden by state lawNot directly comparable

Vancouver: The 2026 total residential levy of $3.36394 per $1,000 of taxable value, including the provincial school, TransLink, BC Assessment, Metro Vancouver and MFA portions, before the Home Owner Grant. San Antonio: About 1.56% of value for a homesteaded owner, worked out on the $280,999 Bexar County median sale price. A house in the City of San Antonio and Northside ISD, the school district more of the city's residents live in than any other, is taxed by seven units for 2025, which add to 2.290174 per $100 before any exemption. Each takes its own homestead exemption off the appraised value first: Northside ISD the state's $140,000 and nothing more, the county's Road and Flood Control Fund the state's $3,000 for a flood control tax and a further 20%, the Alamo Community College District 1% with the state's $5,000 floor, the San Antonio River Authority 4%, and Bexar County, University Health and the City 20% each. So Bexar County levies 0.276331 per $100 on $224,799 after an exemption of $56,200, $621; Bexar County Road and Flood Control Fund levies 0.023668 per $100 on $221,799 after an exemption of $59,200, $52; University Health levies 0.276235 per $100 on $224,799 after an exemption of $56,200, $621; City of San Antonio levies 0.54159 per $100 on $224,799 after an exemption of $56,200, $1,217; Northside ISD levies 1.0049 per $100 on $140,999 after an exemption of $140,000, $1,417; Alamo Community College District levies 0.14915 per $100 on $275,999 after an exemption of $5,000, $412; San Antonio River Authority levies 0.0183 per $100 on $269,759 after an exemption of $11,240, $49. The seven come to $4,390 a year, 1.56% of the price. Without a homestead, as a landlord or a buyer who never files, the same house owes $6,435. In San Antonio ISD, the inner-city district, the school line is 1.1552 per $100 after an exemption of $145,000, and the same house comes to $4,544, 1.62%. The median is the county's, and a typical home inside the city is cheaper: on $247,453, Zillow's August 2026 value for a typical City of San Antonio home, the Northside ISD stack comes to $3,697, 1.49%, lower because the school district's flat exemption is a larger share of a cheaper house. These are the 2025 rates, the bills due by 31 January 2026. When these figures were retrieved the Bexar County Tax Assessor-Collector's official table ran to 2025, with the units' 2026 rate calculation worksheets posted but no 2026 official rates, so the calculators stay on 2025 until all seven are published.

02: Crime and safety

How safe each city is, by the numbers it publishes

Police-reported figures for the most recent year each force or statistics agency has released. Rates describe a whole city or metro area, and the spread between neighbourhoods inside one city is usually wider than the gap between the two cities.

Crime
MeasureVancouverSan AntonioAdvantage
Crime Severity Index
Statistics Canada's weighted index for the metropolitan area, where 100 is Canada in 2006. American cities have no equivalent series.
83.5 (2025)Not publishedNot directly comparable
Violent crime per 100,000
Canada counts every violent Criminal Code incident; the FBI counts four offences. The Canadian figure is always the larger one for that reason alone.
709 (2025)532 (2025)Not directly comparable
Property crime per 100,0004,067 (2025)3,920 (2025)Not directly comparable
Homicides
Counts, not rates, and a single year in a small city moves a long way on chance alone. What each figure covers is under the table.
26 (2025)106 (2025)Not directly comparable
Vancouver

The Vancouver CMA Crime Severity Index fell from 92.33 in 2022 to 82.29 in 2024, then edged up 1.5% to 83.51 in 2025 while Canada's fell 5%. Within the city, VPD counts show violent crime down 15% from 6,288 incidents in 2023 to 5,343 in 2025 (the lowest rate in the five-year table) and property crime down 9% from its 2023 peak, while weapons offences and possession of stolen property rose sharply in 2025.

What the rates cover: City of Vancouver only (VPD), 5,343 violent Criminal Code incidents, 7.09 per 1,000 population, converted to per 100,000. Not a CMA figure.

Homicides: City of Vancouver (VPD culpable homicide). 11 of the 26 were victims of the April 2025 Lapu-Lapu Day festival vehicle attack; 2024 had 11 and 2023 had 15. About 3.5 per 100,000 on the city's 753,100 population estimate; the VPD table rounds the rate to 0.03 per 1,000.

San Antonio

On the FBI's definitions, violent offenses in San Antonio went from 11,219 in 2021 to a peak of 13,105 in 2022, then 10,440 in 2023, 9,173 in 2024 and 8,241 in 2025, a 10% drop in the last year and 37% below the peak, and property offenses from 61,559 to 74,787 and a peak of 80,789 in 2023, then 70,657 and 60,693, 25% below the peak. Motor vehicle theft drove most of that swing: 8,912 in 2021, 19,090 in 2023 and 9,527 in 2025, half the peak. In 2025 the CDE shows aggravated assaults down 9% (6,037 to 5,506), robberies down 17% (1,656 to 1,380), rapes down 8% (1,354 to 1,249) and murders down 16% (126 to 106). SAPD's own January-to-November comparison points the same way: all reported crime down 13% (143,529 to 124,314), crimes against property down 18.1%, motor vehicle theft down 26.5% and robberies down 16.4%, while crimes against society rose 15.4%, which the chief put down to more drug arrests. A University of Texas at San Antonio evaluation of the city's Violent Crime Reduction Plan found violent street crime fell 22% in treated hot spots in 2024 against 9.6% citywide (San Antonio Report). The 2025 CDE counts were read on 30 September 2026 from a feed last refreshed on 15 September and can still be revised.

What the rates cover: Computed: 8,241 violent offenses (murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) in the FBI Crime Data Explorer's summarized data for the San Antonio Police Department (ORI TXSPD0000) in calendar 2025, divided by the 1,548,422 Vintage 2025 city population. On the CDE's own agency population of 1,549,306 the rate is also 532. No SAPD total on this definition was found in anything fetched. Its year-end report to the City Council's Public Safety Committee in December 2025 counted NIBRS crimes against persons, which include simple assaults, and put them at 28,361 for January through November 2025, down 9% from 31,179 in the same months of 2024 (KSAT).

Homicides: 106 murders and nonnegligent manslaughters in 2025 in the FBI CDE, against 126 in 2024, about 6.8 per 100,000 on the city population. SAPD's own count for January through November 2025 was 99 against 119 in the same months of 2024, a drop of nearly 17% (KSAT); a full-year SAPD figure was not found in anything fetched. The high point in the CDE series since 2021 is 233, in 2022, a year whose count includes the 53 migrants found dead in a tractor-trailer on the Southwest Side (San Antonio Report).

03: Climate

Winters, summers and what the weather can do to a house

Climate normals
MeasureVancouverSan AntonioAdvantage
January mean4.1 °C11.2 °CNot directly comparable
July mean18.2 °C29.3 °CNot directly comparable
Precipitation a year1,160 mm822 mmNot directly comparable
Snowfall a year37 cm1 cmNot directly comparable
Sunshine a yearNot published2,629 hoursNot directly comparable
Vancouver

Environment and Climate Change Canada 1991-2020 normals, Vancouver Int'l A (climate ID 1108395). January average 4.1 C, July 18.2 C, annual precipitation 1,159.5 mm with 174 mm in January and 34 mm in July, snowfall 36.6 cm a year. The 1991-2020 normals do not publish bright sunshine hours for this station, so the table shows no sunshine figure for Vancouver.

Hazards: Wildfire smoke from the BC Interior in late summer, heat events (the June 2021 heat dome), atmospheric river flooding in the Fraser Valley (November 2021), and Cascadia earthquake risk; no hurricanes or hail of note.

San Antonio

NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 normals for San Antonio International Airport (station USW00012921), inside the city about 8 miles north of downtown and the station where the National Weather Service keeps San Antonio's official record: January mean 52.2F, July mean 84.8F, annual mean 69.6F, 32.38 in of precipitation, 0.2 in of snow. August is the warmest month at 85.5F, with a mean high of 96.0F; July's mean high is 94.9F and January's mean low is 41.0F. May (4.40 in) and September (3.88 in) are the wettest months and February (1.74 in) the driest; the little snow the normals record falls in February and December. The normals count 122.4 days a year at 90F or above, 17.7 at 100F or above and 14.0 nights at or below freezing. Converted here to 11.2 C, 29.3 C, 822 mm and 0.5 cm. That January mean is the same as Austin's at Camp Mabry and the precipitation is the least of the Texas cities this site compares, 99 mm less than Austin's and 495 mm less than Houston's. Sunshine hours are the older 1961-1990 NCDC means (2,629 hours, 60% of possible, and 105 clear days), since the 1991-2020 normals do not include sunshine.

Hazards: Flash flooding is the defining hazard. San Antonio sits on the Balcones Escarpment in what a National Weather Service meteorologist calls Flash Flood Alley, where shallow soil over limestone sends heavy rain straight into the creeks. On 17 and 18 October 1998 a nearly stationary storm complex, fed by moisture from two Eastern Pacific hurricanes, dropped 11.26 in (286 mm) on San Antonio International on the 17th, still the station's wettest calendar day, and 13.35 in (339 mm) in 24 hours, and October 1998's 18.07 in (459 mm) remains the wettest month on record there. Across South Texas that flood killed 31 people, and NOAA puts the damage at $942 million ($1.81 billion in 2024 dollars); the San Antonio Report counts 11 of the dead in San Antonio. On 25 May 2013, over Memorial Day weekend, 9.87 in (251 mm) fell at the airport, the station's second-wettest day, and a gauge on Olmos Creek caught 15.31 in in five hours and about 17 in by the end of the day; US 281 stayed under water for days, crews made more than 235 rescues and at least two people died. The deadliest single day came on 12 June 2025, when more than 7 in fell in three hours over the Beitel Creek watershed on the Northeast Side and the airport recorded a record 3.9 in (99 mm) in one hour and 6.11 in (155 mm) for the day: the creek rose by as much as a foot every ten minutes, and 13 people died, 11 of them along Beitel Creek, where at least 15 vehicles were swept off the Loop 410 frontage road. Two more were found dead after a storm flooded Salado Creek over Labor Day weekend, and over the July Fourth weekend between the two 117 people died in nearby Kerr County and 135 across the state. Heat is the constant. The normals count 122.4 days a year at or above 90F, about the same as Austin's 122.8 and more than Houston's 111.3 or Dallas's 107.5, and 17.7 at or above 100F (37.8 C), between Houston's 7.0 and Dallas's 22.4. The airport's record is 75 days of 100F in 2023, including 23 in a row from 30 July to 21 August, well ahead of 59 in 2009 and 58 in 2022, and its highest reading is 111F (43.9 C), on 5 September 2000; 2026 had 24 such days through 22 September. Cold is rare and badly handled. Winter Storm Uri left 6.2 in (15.7 cm) of snow at the airport from 14 to 18 February 2021 and a low of 9F (-12.8 C) on the 15th, the coldest there since 6F (-14.4 C) on 23 December 1989; the station's record low is 0F (-17.8 C), on 31 January 1949, and its biggest snowfall 13.2 in (33.5 cm), on 12 January 1985. ERCOT cut power across the state grid from 15 to 18 February and about 4.5 million customers lost it at the worst; Texas counted 246 deaths from the storm, 16 of them in Bexar County, and CPS Energy, the city's municipal electric and gas utility, reported $675 million to $850 million of losses on natural gas purchases and $175 million to $250 million on purchased power.

04: Income, jobs and taxes

What people earn and what the government takes

Income and taxes
MeasureVancouverSan AntonioAdvantage
Median household income$90,000 CAD (2020)$66,176 USD (2024)Not directly comparable
Unemployment rate
Statistics Canada and the Bureau of Labor Statistics define unemployment slightly differently; the Canadian measure runs about a point higher on the same labour market.
6.0% (July 2026)4.7% (July 2026)Not directly comparable
Sales tax12%8.25%San Antonio
Top marginal income tax
Federal plus provincial or state. The American figure leaves out payroll taxes and the cost of health insurance, both of which a Canadian household covers through the tax it pays here.
53.5%37%San Antonio
Income tax on $100,000, single filer
Computed from each jurisdiction's brackets at a single filer's $100,000 and rounded to the dollar, so a gap of a dollar is rounding rather than tax. Two cities in one province or state are shown as Even, because there the two cells describe the same tax and whatever separates them is method.
$20,500 CAD$13,449 USDNot directly comparable
Vancouver

The Vancouver CMA unemployment rate was 6.0% in July 2026 after 6.6% in June, slightly under the national 6.4%. The regional labour market is service-heavy: the Port of Vancouver is Canada's largest, Metro Vancouver is North America's third-largest film and TV production centre, and YVR set a passenger record in 2025.

Main sectors: Port logistics and trade, Technology and digital media, Film and television production, Tourism and hospitality, Health care and education.

BC has no payroll tax on employees and MSP premiums were eliminated in 2020. Property transfer tax and the speculation and vacancy tax matter for buyers but are not income taxes.

San Antonio

BLS counted 1,191,700 nonfarm jobs in the San Antonio-New Braunfels MSA in August 2026 (not seasonally adjusted, preliminary), up 6,100 or 0.5% on the year. Professional and business services grew fastest (+4.8%, to 162,400), then construction (+2.9%) and trade, transportation and utilities (+2.8%), while information (-7.7%), government (-3.1%, to 181,800) and private education and health services (-2.0%, to 180,300) shrank; federal government employment fell 6.7%, from 38,700 to 36,100. Trade, transportation and utilities is the largest sector at 216,300 jobs. The seasonally adjusted series (SMS48417000000000001) was 1,195,900 in August 2026, 0.8% above August 2025. BLS's federal line is far smaller than the base itself: the Texas Comptroller counts 74,713 direct employees at Joint Base San Antonio in 2025, 33,256 of them active-duty military, and estimates the base supported 223,349 Texas jobs and $33.9 billion of the state's GDP ($53.5 billion of output). Greater SATX, the regional economic development group, calls it the largest joint base in the US military. UT San Antonio, formed when UTSA and UT Health San Antonio merged in September 2025, calls health care and biosciences, a $44.1 billion sector, the city's largest industry. H-E-B, USAA, Valero Energy and iHeartMedia are all headquartered in the city.

Main sectors: Military and federal installations: Joint Base San Antonio (Fort Sam Houston with Brooke Army Medical Center, Lackland Air Force Base with the Air Force's basic military training and the 16th Air Force, and Randolph Air Force Base with the Air Education and Training Command), Health care and biosciences (the South Texas Medical Center, University Health, UT Health San Antonio and UT San Antonio, Methodist Hospital, the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans Hospital), Tourism and hospitality (Visit San Antonio counts $23.4 billion of economic impact and more than 150,000 jobs in 2024), Trade, transportation and utilities, the metro's largest sector by payroll jobs (H-E-B, headquartered in the city; CPS Energy; San Antonio International Airport's cargo), Financial services, energy and media headquarters (USAA, Valero Energy, iHeartMedia).

Property tax is the local levy that matters. Tax Foundation puts Texas's effective property tax rate on owner-occupied homes at 1.40%, and school districts must exempt $140,000 of a homestead's value from their tax. On 17 September 2026 the City Council voted 7 to 4, with Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones in the minority, to raise the city's own rate for the first time since 1992, as part of a plan to close a $158 million deficit over two years that also includes cuts, fee increases and a second rate increase planned for fiscal 2028. The fiscal 2027 rate is 56.288 cents per $100 of taxable value: 35.138 cents for maintenance and operations, two cents more than before, and 21.150 cents for debt service. The two outlets that gave a figure for the average homestead disagree: KSAT put it at about $49 more a year on a taxable value of $231,356, and the San Antonio Report at $35.43 on a $234,000 home. Senior and disabled homeowners with a tax freeze, about 47% of the city's homesteads, are unaffected (KSAT). The county, school district, University Health, San Antonio River Authority, Alamo Colleges and other levies on the same bill belong to the housing layer.

05: Getting around

Whether you need a car

Transit
MeasureVancouverSan AntonioAdvantage
SystemTransLink (SkyTrain Expo, Millennium and Canada lines; bus; SeaBus; West Coast Express)VIA buses on 95 routes (three Primo rapid lines, 21 frequent and 70 standard) with 511 buses and 5,984 stops, VIA Link on-demand rideshare zones and paratransit (138 vehicles), across San Antonio, 13 smaller cities and unincorporated Bexar County; there is no rail, and the Green Line, the first of two Advanced Rapid Transit bus lines, is under constructionNot directly comparable
Commute by public transit22.9% (2021)2.4% (2024)Vancouver
Walk or cycle to work18.4% (2021)2.5% (2024)Vancouver
AirportVancouver International Airport, YVR, 26.9 million passengers in 2025, an all-time record and 2.7% above 2024 (Vancouver Airport Authority, January 2026)San Antonio International Airport (SAT), about 8 miles north of downtown and with no airline hub, handled 10,740,694 passengers in 2025, 3.2% fewer than the record 11,094,278 of 2024, and a record 274,847,470 pounds of air cargo, up 15.7%, per the airport's year-end statistics report, which puts the passenger decline down to economic uncertainty and the federal government shutdown. The airport is building Terminal C, which it says will add more than 850,000 square feet and up to 18 domestic and international gates by mid-2028.Not directly comparable
Vancouver

396.3 million boardings and 237.6 million journeys in 2025, down about 1.5% from 2024, the first annual decline since the pandemic recovery (TransLink figures reported by Daily Hive, 2026-03-25).

San Antonio

VIA carried 30,665,700 unlinked trips in 2025 and about 105,800 a weekday in the second quarter of 2026 (APTA ridership reports, as cited by Wikipedia; APTA's PDFs refused the fetcher), against 78.0 million for Houston's METRO and 52.8 million for DART. Bexar County voters created VIA in 1977 with a half-cent sales tax, and a city-only Advanced Transportation District approved in 2004 adds more. The VIA Rapid Green Line will run along San Pedro Avenue from San Antonio International Airport through downtown to Brooks Transit Center, with dedicated bus lanes and new signal-protected crossings. It is a $481 million project, $268 million of it a federal grant the Federal Transit Administration committed in December 2024; construction began in the summer of 2025, work is active along San Pedro, and the FTA's revenue service date is April 2028. The east-west Silver Line, from the Frost Bank Center area to General McMullen Drive, is in design and projected for late 2030.

06: Daily life

Health care, schools and what each city is like

Vancouver

Health care

Care is paid for through BC's Medical Services Plan, which covers residents after a waiting period of up to three months with no premiums since January 2020; prescription drugs outside hospital fall under income-tested Fair PharmaCare or employer plans. Finding a family doctor is the practical problem: the province's Health Connect Registry reported about 1.4 million BC residents without a primary care provider in mid-2025, and the main acute hospitals are Vancouver General, St. Paul's (moving to a new False Creek site), and BC Children's.

Education

The University of British Columbia (Point Grey campus) and Simon Fraser University (Burnaby, with downtown campuses) are the two research universities, alongside Emily Carr, Langara, and BCIT. K to 12 is run by the Vancouver School Board (District 39), about 50,000 students in 87 elementary and 18 secondary schools, with French immersion and mini-school programs instead of charters; independent schools receive partial provincial funding.

Living there

A dense, mountainous coastal city where most of the region's jobs and housing sit within a few kilometres of water, and where the cost of housing shapes nearly every decision about where to live. Winters are mild, grey and wet from November to March; summers are dry and bright, increasingly interrupted by wildfire smoke. Day to day it is a transit-and-bike city by Canadian standards, with strong East Asian and South Asian communities and a visible drug and homelessness crisis concentrated in the Downtown Eastside.

San Antonio

Health care

Care is paid for through employer or marketplace insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, and Texas is one of the ten states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (KFF, August 2026). It had the highest uninsured rate of any state in 2024: 16.7%, or 5,152,427 of 30,799,312 people, against 8.2% nationally and 12.0% in Georgia, the next highest, on the ACS 2024 1-year estimates. The City of San Antonio's rate was 18.0% (268,665 of 1,496,335), Bexar County's 15.8% and the metro's 14.5%. The South Texas Medical Center on the Northwest Side covers more than 900 acres around the medical school that opened there in 1968 and holds the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans Medical Center and a dozen other hospitals; a UTSA study cited by the San Antonio Report in 2022 put its annual economic effect on the region at $24.5 billion. University Health, the Bexar County Hospital District, runs University Hospital there, a 716-bed teaching hospital and a Level I trauma center for adults and children, and the 300-bed Women's & Children's Hospital that opened on the same campus in 2023; it plans to open two community hospitals elsewhere in the county in 2027. Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston has about 8,500 staff. UT Health San Antonio, the clinical arm of UT San Antonio, counts more than 2.5 million patient visits a year. This file did not verify a wait time figure for primary or specialist care.

Education

No single school district covers the city. Northside ISD, the largest in the San Antonio area with about 98,000 students, faced a $35 million deficit in March 2026, down from nearly $108 million, and its superintendent said closures were possible but not expected for 2026-27 (KSAT). North East ISD lost about 2,000 students in 2025-26, now serves about 55,000, closed three campuses the year before and will accept students from anywhere in the region from 2026-27 (San Antonio Report). San Antonio ISD has closed 25 schools in the last decade and in March 2026 voted to close Rhodes Middle School and hand three other campuses to a charter operator, Third Future Schools, citing falling enrollment and state accountability ratings. Districts say they cannot yet tell how many students the state's new education savings accounts, which help pay private school tuition from 2026-27, will draw away. UT San Antonio, formed on 2 September 2025 when UTSA merged with UT Health San Antonio, has about 40,000 students and 17,000 employees and calls itself the third-largest public research university in Texas by research spending, and the Alamo Colleges District runs five community colleges.

Living there

San Antonio is the second city of Texas and the seventh-largest in the country, and unlike Dallas it is still growing inside its own limits: it added 14,359 residents in 2024-25, the third-largest gain of any US city, and 8.0% since 2020. The military has shaped it for three centuries, and Joint Base San Antonio, with 74,713 direct employees, sits beside the South Texas Medical Center and a tourism trade Visit San Antonio values at $23.4 billion as the pillars of the economy. Household income is lower than in Dallas or Austin, and 18.0% of residents have no health insurance. VIA runs buses only, 2.4% of workers take them and 68.2% drive alone, and the Green Line along San Pedro Avenue, the city's first rapid transit line, is due in April 2028. Summers are long and dry rather than humid, with 122 days a year at 90F or above and 75 at 100F in 2023, and water is the killer: the creeks rise within minutes, and a single night of rain on 12 June 2025 drowned 13 people. The open questions are fiscal and civic: the council raised the city's property tax rate for the first time since 1992 on a 7 to 4 vote the mayor opposed, with a second increase planned, and the big school districts are shrinking, closing campuses and competing for each other's students as the state's education savings accounts begin.

07: The trade-offs

Where each city wins, and where it loses

Vancouver's figures are in Canadian dollars and San Antonio's in US dollars, so each is read against local pay. Vancouver's composite benchmark was $1,088,800 CAD in July 2026, 12.1 times the metro's 2020 median household income of $90,000 CAD. San Antonio's price is the San Antonio Board of REALTORS' median sale price for Bexar County, $280,999 USD in August 2026, 3.1% below a year earlier; it is the county's, because no city-level median could be retrieved, and about 4.2 times the City of San Antonio's 2024 median of $66,176 USD. Zillow's index for the City of San Antonio stood lower, at $247,453, about 3.7 times. At 20% down, Vancouver's mortgage at 4.34% is $4,744 CAD a month over 25 years, and San Antonio's $224,799 loan at 7.03%, Freddie Mac's rate for 24 September 2026, about $1,500 USD over 30. Property tax runs the other way: 0.336% of value in Vancouver, $3,663 CAD a year, against $4,390 USD from the seven taxing units on a Bexar County address in the City and Northside ISD, an effective 1.56% with a homestead and $6,435 without. Insurance is budgeted at $190 CAD and $250 USD a month, and the San Antonio figure has no flood policy in it. The owners carry about $5,239 CAD and $2,116 USD, roughly 70% and 38% of local median income. A two-bedroom averaged $2,638 CAD in October 2025, and San Antonio's median two-bedroom rent was $1,179 USD in September 2026. British Columbia caps an existing tenancy at 2.3% for 2026, and Texas forbids rent control by statute outside a declared disaster.

Homicide is the one count that crosses the border intact. Vancouver recorded 26 in 2025, about 3.5 per 100,000 on the city's 753,100 estimate, and 11 of them were victims of one event, the April 2025 Lapu-Lapu Day festival vehicle attack, against 11 in 2024 and 15 in 2023. San Antonio recorded 106 in the FBI's file, about 6.8 per 100,000, against 126 in 2024, and the police department's own count for January through November was 99. The other rates are different instruments. The Vancouver Police Department counted 5,343 violent Criminal Code incidents in the city, 709 per 100,000, a count that includes common assault and uttering threats; the San Antonio figure of 532 per 100,000 is 8,241 FBI-definition offenses of murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, divided by the Census estimate of 1,548,422, because no San Antonio Police Department total on those definitions was found. Property crime, 4,067 incidents per 100,000 against 3,920 offenses, is defined differently too. Both are falling on their own counts, Vancouver's violent incidents 15% below 2023 and San Antonio's violent offenses 10% lower in 2025 and 37% below their 2022 peak, but the Vancouver metro's Crime Severity Index edged 1.5% higher to 83.51 in 2025. The San Antonio counts were read on 30 September 2026 and can still be revised.

San Antonio is the warmer city in both seasons, and Vancouver the wetter one. January averages 4.1 C at Vancouver International and 11.2 C at San Antonio International; July averages 18.2 C and dry in Vancouver against 29.3 C in San Antonio, where August is warmer still. Vancouver gets 1,159.5 mm of precipitation a year, 174 mm in January and 34 mm in July, as gray rain from November to March. San Antonio gets 822 mm, with May and September the wettest months, and it arrives in downpours: the city sits on the Balcones Escarpment, where rain runs off shallow soil into the creeks within minutes, and on 12 June 2025 a storm on the Northeast Side drowned 13 people, most of them in vehicles swept off a Loop 410 frontage road into Beitel Creek. Snow is a few days a year in Vancouver, a 36.6 cm normal, and nearly absent in San Antonio at 0.5 cm. Sunshine cannot be compared, because Canada's 1991-2020 normals publish none for Vancouver. San Antonio's normals count 122.4 days a year at or above 32.2 C (90F) and 17.7 at or above 37.8 C (100F), and 2023 brought 75 days of 100F. Cold is rare and badly handled: Winter Storm Uri brought 9F (-12.8 C) to the airport in February 2021 while ERCOT cut power across the state grid. Vancouver's hazards are late-summer wildfire smoke, heat events like the June 2021 dome, atmospheric river flooding in the Fraser Valley and Cascadia earthquake risk.

The labor markets are in different condition, and built on different work. The San Antonio metro counted 1,191,700 nonfarm jobs in August 2026, 0.5% more than a year earlier, around Joint Base San Antonio, which had 74,713 direct employees in 2025, health care and biosciences, tourism and the headquarters of H-E-B, USAA, Valero Energy and iHeartMedia. Its unemployment rate was 4.7% in July 2026, not seasonally adjusted and preliminary; the US was 4.4% on the same basis. The Vancouver metro's was 6.0% on a three-month average, after 6.6% in June and under Canada's 6.4%; the two rates are not built the same way, so the gap is approximate. Vancouver runs on the Port of Vancouver, Canada's largest, on film and television production, technology and tourism. Median household income was $90,000 CAD across the Vancouver metro and $82,000 in the city in 2020, against $66,176 USD in the City of San Antonio in 2024 and $78,112 across its metro. The tax systems are near opposites. British Columbia funds itself through income and sales tax: about $20,500 CAD on $100,000, 20.5% before CPP and EI, a top combined rate of 53.5%, and 12% on purchases, 5% GST plus 7% PST. Texas has no state income tax, so the same salary pays $13,449 USD in federal tax for 2025, the top rate is the federal 37% and sales tax is 8.25%. Property tax carries the load instead, and on these two homes the San Antonio bill is the larger number.

Transit is the widest gap in the pair. In the 2021 census 22.9% of City of Vancouver commuters took transit and 18.4% walked or cycled, counted in May 2021 with much of the city working from home, and the metro's transit share was 14.9%. In San Antonio 2.4% of workers commuted by transit in 2024, all of them by bus, 2.5% walked or cycled and 68.2% drove alone. TransLink's Expo, Millennium and Canada SkyTrain lines, buses, SeaBus and West Coast Express logged 396.3 million boardings in 2025; VIA carried 30,665,700 trips on 95 bus routes, three of them Primo rapid lines, with no rail at all. Its first rapid transit line, the $481 million Green Line, is a bus route with dedicated lanes along San Pedro Avenue from the airport through downtown to Brooks Transit Center, under construction since the summer of 2025 and due in April 2028. Flying favors Vancouver. YVR handled a record 26.9 million passengers in 2025, against 10,740,694 at San Antonio International, which is no airline's hub and handled 3.2% fewer than in 2024; it is building a Terminal C due by mid-2028.

Health care is where the border shows most. British Columbia's Medical Services Plan pays for physician and hospital care with nothing due at the point of use and has charged no premiums since January 2020, but a new arrival waits up to three months for coverage and about 1.4 million British Columbians had no primary care provider in mid-2025. In San Antonio care is bought through an employer or marketplace plan, Medicare or Medicaid, and Texas is one of ten states that have not expanded Medicaid. It had the highest uninsured rate of any state in 2024, 16.7%, and the City of San Antonio's was 18.0%. University Health, the county's hospital district, runs University Hospital in the South Texas Medical Center, a 716-bed teaching hospital and a Level I trauma center for adults and children; Vancouver's major hospitals are Vancouver General, St. Paul's and BC Children's. This site verified no wait time figure for either city. The Vancouver School Board teaches about 50,000 students with French immersion and mini-school programs and no charters. No single district covers San Antonio: Northside ISD, the largest, with about 98,000 students, faced a $35 million deficit in March 2026, San Antonio ISD has closed 25 schools in a decade, and the state's education savings accounts begin paying toward private tuition in 2026-27.

What people underestimate is how differently the two are growing, and what the San Antonio figure leaves out. Vancouver's benchmark was 6.2% lower in July 2026 than a year earlier, in a metro of 3,088,036 that grew 0.2% in the year to July 2025 after a net loss of non-permanent residents. The Bexar County median was 3.1% lower in August 2026, in a metro of 2,813,140 that added 38,402 people in 2024-25, while the city itself added 14,359, the third-largest gain of any US city. The costs at the door differ too. A Vancouver buyer hands over $19,776 in BC property transfer tax at closing; Texas has none. But the San Antonio carry buys no flood insurance, which a homeowners policy does not include, and its $4,390 tax assumes a filed homestead in the City and Northside ISD at 2025 rates. A San Antonio mailing address may be outside the city, in one of 24 special improvement districts the county has created in the City's extraterritorial jurisdiction, 22 of them levying 0.54159 per $100, the same as the City's own rate, and on 17 September 2026 the City Council voted to raise the city's own rate for the first time since 1992. Vancouver's 4.34% renews after a five-year term, while the San Antonio 7.03% holds for thirty years; at 6.67%, the August rate Charlotte and the Florida cities on this site were written at, the carry would be about $2,062.

Vancouver

Better here

  • 22.9% of city commuters took transit in the 2021 census and 18.4% walked or cycled, against 2.4% and 2.5% in San Antonio in 2024.
  • The Medical Services Plan covers physician and hospital care with nothing due at the point of use and has charged no premiums since January 2020, where 18.0% of San Antonio residents had no health insurance in 2024.
  • July averages 18.2 C and dry on the 1991-2020 normals against 29.3 C at San Antonio International, where the same normals count 122.4 days a year at or above 32.2 C (90F).
  • There were 26 homicides in 2025, about 3.5 per 100,000, 11 of them from a single attack, against 106 in San Antonio at about 6.8.
  • An existing tenancy is capped at 2.3% for 2026 under BC rules, while Texas forbids rent control by statute outside a declared disaster.
  • YVR handled a record 26.9 million passengers in 2025, against 10,740,694 at San Antonio International, which is no airline's hub.

Worse here

  • The benchmark home was 12.1 times the metro's 2020 median household income of $90,000 CAD in July 2026, against about 4.2 times for the Bexar County median in August 2026.
  • Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $5,239 CAD a month on the July 2026 benchmark, roughly 70% of that median, and the buyer pays $19,776 in property transfer tax at closing.
  • Metro unemployment was 6.0% in July 2026 against 4.7% in the San Antonio metro on an unadjusted count the same month.
  • About 1.4 million British Columbians had no primary care provider in mid-2025, and a new arrival waits up to three months for MSP coverage.
  • Income tax on $100,000 is about $20,500 CAD for 2025 against $13,449 USD of federal tax in San Antonio, and sales tax is 12% against 8.25%.
  • January averages 4.1 C and 1,159.5 mm of precipitation falls in a year, most of it as gray rain from November to March, against 11.2 C and 822 mm in San Antonio.

Choose Vancouver if

  • you want to live without a car, in a city where 22.9% of commuters took transit even in the pandemic census
  • you already hold housing equity, because 12.1 times median household income is not a salary purchase
  • you want coverage that does not depend on a job, and can wait out the three-month MSP qualifying period
  • you would rather have an 18.2 C July and gray winter rain than 122 days a year at 90F or more and creeks that flood in minutes

The Vancouver guide · Neighbourhoods · Vancouver rent vs buy · Vancouver mortgage calculator

San Antonio

Better here

  • The Bexar County median of $280,999 USD in August 2026 is about 4.2 times the city's 2024 median household income, against 12.1 times in Vancouver, and Zillow's index for the City of San Antonio stood lower, at $247,453.
  • Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $2,116 USD a month on that county median, roughly 38% of local median income against about 70% in Vancouver, and Texas charges no transfer tax.
  • Metro unemployment was 4.7% in July 2026, not seasonally adjusted, against 6.0% in the Vancouver metro, on 1,191,700 nonfarm jobs in August.
  • Texas levies no income tax, so $100,000 pays $13,449 USD in federal tax for 2025 and $13,170 for 2026, against about $20,500 CAD in Vancouver.
  • January averages 11.2 C on the 1991-2020 normals against 4.1 C in Vancouver, snow is 0.5 cm a year, and the older series records 2,629 hours of sunshine.
  • Violent offenses on the FBI's definitions dropped 10% in 2025 to 8,241 and stood 37% below their 2022 peak, and homicides fell from 126 to 106.

Worse here

  • There were 106 homicides in 2025, about 6.8 per 100,000, against 26 in Vancouver at about 3.5.
  • Property tax on the county median is $4,390 a year for the 2025 tax year with a homestead, an effective 1.56%, and $6,435 without one, against 0.336% of value in Vancouver.
  • Only 2.4% of workers commuted by transit in 2024 and 68.2% drove alone, and VIA runs no rail; its first rapid transit line is a bus route due in April 2028.
  • Flash floods on 12 June 2025 killed 13 people, most of them in vehicles swept into Beitel Creek, and a homeowners policy does not cover rising water.
  • Texas had the highest uninsured rate of any state in 2024, 16.7%, the City of San Antonio's was 18.0%, and in August 2026 Texas was one of ten states that have not expanded Medicaid.
  • The normals count 17.7 days a year at or above 37.8 C (100F), and 2023 brought 75 of them.

Choose San Antonio if

  • you want a house at about four times what households around you earn, bought on a salary rather than on equity
  • you want a metro with 4.7% unemployment, where the military, medicine and tourism hire
  • you have employer health insurance you trust and would rather pay tax on a house than on a salary
  • you will drive to most things and can plan around long summers and a flood policy

The San Antonio guide · Neighborhoods · San Antonio rent vs buy · San Antonio mortgage calculator

08: Questions people ask

Vancouver or San Antonio, in short

Is Vancouver or San Antonio cheaper to live in?

San Antonio, once each bill is held against its own city's pay, because the currencies do not convert here. A Vancouver owner pays about $5,239 CAD a month on mortgage, property tax and insurance, roughly 70% of the metro's 2020 median household income of $90,000 CAD, on a benchmark 12.1 times that income. A San Antonio owner pays about $2,116 USD on the Bexar County median of $280,999, roughly 38% of the City of San Antonio's 2024 median of $66,176 USD, despite a 7.03% mortgage rate against 4.34% and a property tax bill of $4,390 a year; the price is the county's and the income the city's, and Zillow's index for the City of San Antonio stood lower, at $247,453. Flood insurance is not in that figure. A two-bedroom averaged $2,638 CAD in Vancouver in October 2025 and had a median of $1,179 USD in San Antonio in September 2026, about 35% and 21% of each city's median household income. Vancouver's buyer also pays $19,776 in property transfer tax at closing, and its income tax is heavier, about $20,500 CAD on $100,000 against $13,449 USD, with 12% sales tax against 8.25%.

Is Vancouver or San Antonio safer?

Vancouver on homicide, the one count that crosses the border. Vancouver recorded 26 homicides in 2025, about 3.5 per 100,000, and 11 of them were victims of the April 2025 Lapu-Lapu Day festival vehicle attack; San Antonio recorded 106 in the FBI's file, about 6.8 per 100,000, against 126 in 2024. The violent rates, 709 per 100,000 in Vancouver and 532 in San Antonio, are different instruments: the Canadian count includes common assault and uttering threats, and the American one is murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. Property crime, 4,067 incidents per 100,000 against 3,920 offenses, is defined differently as well. Violent offenses in San Antonio dropped 10% in 2025, while the Vancouver metro's Crime Severity Index edged 1.5% higher to 83.51, above the national 75.0; American cities have no equivalent index.

Which has the better climate, Vancouver or San Antonio?

San Antonio in winter and Vancouver in summer. January averages 11.2 C in San Antonio against 4.1 C in Vancouver, where most of the year's 1,159.5 mm falls as gray rain from November to March. July averages 18.2 C and dry in Vancouver against 29.3 C at San Antonio International, where the normals count 122.4 days a year at or above 32.2 C (90F) and 17.7 at or above 37.8 C (100F). San Antonio is the drier city over the year, 822 mm, but its rain comes in bursts that flood the creeks within minutes, as on 12 June 2025, when 13 people died. Vancouver's hazards are late-summer wildfire smoke, heat events like the June 2021 dome, atmospheric river flooding and Cascadia earthquake risk; San Antonio's are flash floods, long runs of 100F heat and the rare hard freeze, like February 2021, when ERCOT cut power across the state grid.

What happens to my health care if I move from Vancouver to San Antonio?

Coverage stops coming with residency and starts coming with a job or a purchase. In Vancouver the Medical Services Plan pays for physician and hospital care with nothing due at the point of use and no premium since January 2020, and the problem is access: about 1.4 million British Columbians had no primary care provider in mid-2025. In San Antonio you need an employer or marketplace plan, Medicare or Medicaid, and the premium, deductible and copay that come with them. Texas is one of the ten states that have not expanded Medicaid and had the highest uninsured rate of any state in 2024, 16.7%; the City of San Antonio's was 18.0%. For the insured, University Health's University Hospital in the South Texas Medical Center is a 716-bed teaching hospital and a Level I trauma center for adults and children, and UT Health San Antonio counts more than 2.5 million patient visits a year. This site verified no wait time figure for either city.

Sources

Where the figures come from

Housing figures are the ones behind each city's calculators, dated on those pages. The rest are listed here with the date they were retrieved. See the methodology for how facts, estimates and opinion are kept apart.

  1. Census Profile, 2021 Census of Population: Vancouver, City (CY) and Vancouver (CMA) · Statistics Canada · retrieved
    Supports: City population, population.metro (2021 count), Five-year growth, Median household income, Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share
  2. Population estimates, July 1, by census metropolitan area and census agglomeration (table 17-10-0148-01) · Statistics Canada · retrieved
    Supports: Metro population
  3. The Daily: Canada's population estimates, subprovincial areas, 2025 · Statistics Canada · retrieved
    Supports: population.growthPct5y note
  4. Crime severity index and weighted clearance rates, Canada, provinces, territories and Census Metropolitan Areas (table 35-10-0026-01) · Statistics Canada · retrieved
    Supports: Crime Severity Index, Crime trend
  5. Police-reported Crime Severity Index and crime rate, by census metropolitan area, 2025 · Statistics Canada, The Daily · retrieved
    Supports: crime.index note (crime rate, Canada CSI)
  6. Vancouver Police Department Crime Incident and Crime Rate Statistics, 2021-2025 · Vancouver Police Department · retrieved
    Supports: Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend, population.city note
  7. Violent crime in Vancouver reaches 20-year low, according to VPD report · CTV News Vancouver · retrieved
    Supports: Crime trend
  8. Canadian Climate Normals 1991-2020, Vancouver International (Airport) · Environment and Climate Change Canada · retrieved
    Supports: January mean, July mean, Annual precipitation, Annual snowfall
  9. The Daily: Labour Force Survey, July 2026 · Statistics Canada · retrieved
    Supports: Unemployment rate, Labour market
  10. Personal income tax rates · Government of British Columbia · retrieved
    Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
  11. BC 2025 and 2026 Tax Rates and Tax Brackets · TaxTips.ca · retrieved
    Supports: Top marginal income tax, taxes.incomeTaxAt100k (federal brackets and basic personal amount)
  12. Provincial sales tax (PST) · Government of British Columbia · retrieved
    Supports: Sales tax
  13. MSP premiums · Government of British Columbia · retrieved
    Supports: Health care, Tax notes
  14. TransLink ridership sees decline in 2025, partly due to fewer young adults · Daily Hive Urbanized · retrieved
    Supports: Transit ridership
  15. YVR breaks all-time cargo and passenger records in 2025 · Vancouver Airport Authority · retrieved
    Supports: Airport passengers, Labour market
  16. Key sectors underpin Metro Vancouver's growth ambitions · Western Investor · retrieved
    Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
  17. 1.4M in B.C. Have No Family Doctor. Most Aren't Listed · The Canada Report · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  18. Our District · Vancouver School Board · retrieved
    Supports: Education
  19. Vancouver · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: point
  20. Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places in Texas: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2025 (SUB-EST2025) · US Census Bureau · retrieved
    Supports: City population, Five-year growth, Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Character
  21. Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places of 50,000 or More (all states, SUB-EST2025) · US Census Bureau · retrieved
    Supports: City population, Character
  22. Annual Resident Population Estimates and Components of Change for Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas and Their Counties: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2025 (CBSA-EST2025-ALLDATA) · US Census Bureau · retrieved
    Supports: Metro population, Five-year growth
  23. Crime Data Explorer summarized agency data, San Antonio Police Department (TXSPD0000): violent crime, property crime, homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson, 2021-2025 · FBI · retrieved
    Supports: Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend
  24. Crime in San Antonio dropped 13% in 2025, SAPD report says · KSAT · retrieved
    Supports: Violent crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend
  25. San Antonio sees 20% drop in homicides in 2025, new report shows · San Antonio Report · retrieved
    Supports: Homicides, Crime trend
  26. US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00012921 San Antonio International Airport (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved
    Supports: January mean, July mean, Annual precipitation, Annual snowfall, Climate normals, Climate hazards, Character, January 52.2F, July 84.8F and August 85.5F from the monthly series, and annual mean 69.6F, precipitation 32.38 in, snowfall 0.2 in and the counts of days at 90F and 100F and nights at freezing from dataset=normals-annualseasonal-1991-2020 for the same station
  27. Global Historical Climatology Network daily summaries, San Antonio International Airport (USW00012921), 1946-2026 · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards, Character, 11.26 in on 17 October 1998, 9.87 in on 25 May 2013, 6.11 in on 12 June 2025, 75 days at or above 100F in 2023 and 23 in a row from 30 July to 21 August 2023, 59 in 2009, 58 in 2022, 24 in 2026 through 22 September, 111F on 5 September 2000, 6.2 in of snow from 14 to 18 February 2021 and 9F on 15 February 2021, 6F on 23 December 1989, 0F on 31 January 1949, 13.2 in of snow on 12 January 1985
  28. October 1998 Flood Event (South Central Texas) · National Weather Service, Austin/San Antonio · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  29. Average Annual Sunshine in US Cities · Current Results (NCDC Comparative Climatic Data, 1961-1990) · retrieved
    Supports: Sunshine hours, Climate normals
  30. Weather and Climate Billion-Dollar Disasters to affect the U.S. from 1980-2024 (events list) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  31. October 1998 Central Texas floods · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  32. 12 years ago, San Antonio's Highway 281 was submerged by record flooding during Memorial Day weekend · KSAT · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  33. Texas flash floods kill 2 in San Antonio · CBS News · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  34. It's San Antonio's deadliest flood year in 27 years. What's going on? · San Antonio Report · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards, Character
  35. February 2021 Winter Storm-Related Deaths, Texas (mortality surveillance report) · Texas Department of State Health Services · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  36. The Timeline and Events of the February 2021 Texas Electric Grid Blackouts · The University of Texas at Austin Energy Institute · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards, Main sectors
  37. ACS 2024 1-year tables B08301 and B19013 for San Antonio city and the San Antonio-New Braunfels MSA · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved
    Supports: Median household income, Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share, Character
  38. ACS 2024 1-year table B27001 (health insurance coverage) for the 50 states, DC, the US, Bexar County, San Antonio city and the San Antonio-New Braunfels MSA · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved
    Supports: Health care, Character
  39. Local Area Unemployment Statistics, San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX MSA (LAUMT484170000000003), Bexar County, the Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin MSAs, and the US rate (LNU04000000), not seasonally adjusted · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved
    Supports: Unemployment rate
  40. Current Employment Statistics, San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX MSA: total nonfarm (SMU48417000000000001, SMS48417000000000001) and supersectors (SMU484170xx00000001) · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved
    Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
  41. Joint Base San Antonio (Texas military installations economic impact, 2025) · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved
    Supports: Main sectors, Labour market, Health care, Character
  42. Why SATX (Joint Base San Antonio, Military City USA) · Greater SATX Regional Economic Partnership · retrieved
    Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
  43. Visit San Antonio celebrates National Travel and Tourism Week 2026 · Visit San Antonio · retrieved
    Supports: Main sectors, Character
  44. UTSA and UT Health San Antonio complete merger to become The University of Texas at San Antonio · UT San Antonio · retrieved
    Supports: Main sectors, Labour market, Health care, Education
  45. USAA (headquarters) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
  46. H-E-B (headquarters) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
  47. Valero Energy (headquarters) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
  48. iHeartMedia (headquarters) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
  49. City Sales and Use Tax (city rate table) · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved
    Supports: Sales tax
  50. Transit Sales and Use Tax (San Antonio MTA, effective January 1, 1978; San Antonio ATD, effective April 1, 2005, raised January 1, 2026) · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved
    Supports: Sales tax, Transit system, Transit ridership
  51. City's proposed plan: Collect sales tax for 4 years before revenue goes to VIA · San Antonio Report · retrieved
    Supports: Sales tax
  52. Texas Tax Rates & Rankings · Tax Foundation · retrieved
    Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000, Tax notes
  53. 2025 Tax Brackets and Federal Income Tax Rates · Tax Foundation · retrieved
    Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
  54. 2026 Tax Brackets and Federal Income Tax Rates · Tax Foundation · retrieved
    Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
  55. Property Tax Exemptions · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved
    Supports: Tax notes
  56. San Antonio approves first property tax hike in 34 years · KSAT · retrieved
    Supports: Tax notes, Character
  57. San Antonio council passes FY 2027 budget with higher property tax revenue and fees · News 4 San Antonio · retrieved
    Supports: Tax notes
  58. San Antonio approves first tax increase in more than 30 years · San Antonio Report · retrieved
    Supports: Tax notes, Character
  59. VIA Metropolitan Transit (routes, fleet, stops, history, Green and Silver lines) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership
  60. Template:American transit ridership (APTA Transit Ridership Reports, Q4 2025 and Q2 2026) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Transit ridership
  61. Construction Updates, VIA Rapid Green Line · VIA Metropolitan Transit (Keep SA Moving) · retrieved
    Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership, Character
  62. When will San Pedro construction be complete? Here's what VIA says about progress on the Green Line. · KSAT · retrieved
    Supports: Transit ridership, Character
  63. San Antonio locks down federal funding for $480M Green Line · San Antonio Report · retrieved
    Supports: Transit ridership, Sales tax
  64. December & Year End 2025 Statistics · San Antonio International Airport · retrieved
    Supports: Airport passengers
  65. December 2024 Statistics (2024 passenger record) · San Antonio International Airport · retrieved
    Supports: Airport passengers
  66. Terminal Development Program (ELEVATE/SAT) · San Antonio International Airport · retrieved
    Supports: Airport passengers
  67. San Antonio International Airport (location, airlines, 2025 statistics) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Airport passengers, Climate normals
  68. Status of State Medicaid Expansion Decisions · KFF · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  69. San Antonio Medical Foundation marks 75th anniversary · San Antonio Report · retrieved
    Supports: Health care, Main sectors
  70. About Us · University Health · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  71. University Hospital · University Health · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  72. University Health (University Hospital beds, Women's & Children's Hospital) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  73. Northside ISD faces $35 million deficit, but does not anticipate layoffs · KSAT · retrieved
    Supports: Education
  74. Like other San Antonio districts, NEISD drops its boundaries · San Antonio Report · retrieved
    Supports: Education, Character
  75. San Antonio ISD cites declining enrollment, poor academics for school closure · KSAT · retrieved
    Supports: Education, Character
  76. Alamo Colleges District (five colleges) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Education
  77. Metro Vancouver home sales lose brief momentum: July 2026 statistics · Greater Vancouver REALTORS® · retrieved
    Supports: Composite benchmark price of $1,088,800 in July 2026, down 6.2% year over year, Benchmark prices by property type, with every type down on the year
  78. Rental Market Survey: Vancouver (CY), average rent by bedroom type, October 2025 · Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation · retrieved
    Supports: One-bedroom average rent of $1,860, Two-bedroom average rent of $2,638, Metro vacancy rate of 3.7%
  79. Property tax rates · City of Vancouver · retrieved
    Supports: 2026 total residential levy of $3.36394 per $1,000 of taxable value
  80. Home owner grant · Province of British Columbia · retrieved
    Supports: The grant of up to $570 on an eligible principal residence
  81. Premium information for homeowner and small rental loans · Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation · retrieved
    Supports: Mortgage default insurance premium rates by loan-to-value
  82. Regulations amending the Insurable Housing Loan Regulations and the Eligible Mortgage Loan Regulations (SOR/2025-55) · Canada Gazette, Part II · retrieved
    Supports: The $1.5 million insured price cap, 30-year amortization for first-time buyers and new builds
  83. Minimum qualifying rate for uninsured mortgages · Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions · retrieved
    Supports: The qualifying rate of the contract rate plus two points, or 5.25%
  84. Interest rates charged for new and existing lending by chartered banks · Bank of Canada · retrieved
    Supports: The default mortgage rate of 4.34%, uninsured five-year-plus fixed, funds advanced May 2026
  85. Property transfer tax · Province of British Columbia · retrieved
    Supports: Transfer tax brackets, First-time buyer and new build exemptions
  86. Rent increases · Province of British Columbia · retrieved
    Supports: 2026 rent increase guideline of 2.3%
  87. San Antonio home sales rise 4% in August as prices hold steady · San Antonio Board of REALTORS · retrieved
    Supports: Bexar County: 2,068 home sales in August 2026, up 8.8% on the year, at a median price of $280,999, down 3.1%, and an average of $336,979, down 2.6%, The San Antonio area MLS: 3,104 sales, up 4%, at a median of $299,275 and an average of $372,989, released 10 September 2026, The release's table: an area median of $310,000 in August 2025 and $313,995 in August 2024, although its prose calls the median unchanged on the year, 5.87 months of inventory, 16,940 active listings and an average of 82 days on the market, 5,024 active residential rental listings at an average monthly rent of $1,832, down 2%, SABOR's membership serving Atascosa, Bee, Bexar, Frio, Karnes, Kendall, La Salle, Maverick, McMullen, Medina, Uvalde, Val Verde and Wilson counties
  88. South Texas market report: monthly releases · San Antonio Board of REALTORS · retrieved
    Supports: The monthly MLS releases for January through August 2026, reporting the San Antonio area and Bexar County and no City of San Antonio figure
  89. Zillow Home Value Index, all homes, middle tier, smoothed and seasonally adjusted, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved
    Supports: A typical home value of $247,453 for the city of San Antonio (region 6915) in August 2026, $253,000 in August 2025, so a fall of 2.2% over the year
  90. Zillow Home Value Index, single-family and condominium series, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved
    Supports: A typical single-family value of $249,206 in the city of San Antonio in August 2026, against $254,823 a year earlier, down 2.2%, A typical condominium value of $167,371 in the same month, against $174,092, down 3.9%, from the condominium file at https://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public_csvs/zhvi/City_zhvi_uc_condo_tier_0.33_0.67_sm_sa_month.csv
  91. San Antonio Rent Report, October 2026 · Apartment List · retrieved
    Supports: A median rent of $957 for a one-bedroom and $1,179 for a two-bedroom in the city of San Antonio, and $1,121 across all bedroom sizes, Rents down 0.2% over September and down 4.3% over the past 12 months, against -2.1% for the state
  92. Apartments for rent in San Antonio, TX: average rent · Apartment List · retrieved
    Supports: Average listed rents of $1,069 and up for a studio, $1,141 and up for one bedroom, $1,477 and up for two, and $1,887 and up for three or more
  93. FY 2026 fair market rents, San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX HUD Metro FMR Area · United States Department of Housing and Urban Development · retrieved
    Supports: FY 2026 fair market rents of $1,177 for one bedroom, $1,426 for two and $1,830 for three, as gross rents including utilities, Housing Choice Voucher programs in the metro using Small Area Fair Market Rents set by ZIP code
  94. Zillow Observed Rent Index, all homes plus multifamily, smoothed, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved
    Supports: An observed rent index of $1,386 for the city of San Antonio in August 2026, against $1,406 a year earlier, down 1.39%
  95. 2025 official tax rates and exemptions · Bexar County Tax Assessor-Collector · retrieved
    Supports: 2025 rates per $100: Bexar County 0.276331, Road and Flood Control Fund 0.023668, Hospital District 0.276235, City of San Antonio 0.541590, Northside ISD 1.004900, San Antonio ISD 1.155200, Alamo Community College District 0.149150, San Antonio River Authority 0.018300, Homestead exemptions of $5,000 or 20% for Bexar County, the Hospital District and the City; $3,000 and 20% for the Road and Flood Control Fund; $5,000 or 1% for the college district; $5,000 or 4% for the River Authority; $140,000 for Northside ISD; $140,000 and 0.01% for San Antonio ISD, San Antonio Municipal Utility District No. 1 at 0.20, twelve emergency service districts at up to 0.10, and 24 special improvement districts, 22 of them at 0.541590, The Downtown Public Improvement District at 0.15, and 0.09 on condominiums, Official tables from 2005 to 2025 and none yet for 2026, from https://www.bexar.org/1591/Tax-Rates
  96. 2024 actual tax rates and 2025 actual tax rates, as of 5 December 2025 · Bexar Appraisal District · retrieved
    Supports: The same 2025 rates to the sixth decimal, and each unit's 2024 rate beside it: the City, the county, the Road and Flood fund, the Hospital District, the college district and Northside ISD unchanged, and the River Authority up from 0.017870, Local option homestead exemptions not less than $5,000, and the Road and Flood fund's $3,000 homestead exemption, Redbird Ranch water districts at 1.00 per $100
  97. 2025 tax rate calculation worksheets: City of San Antonio · Bexar County Tax Assessor-Collector · retrieved
    Supports: A debt rate of 0.21150 per $100 within the City's 0.54159, leaving 0.33009 for maintenance and operations, The same 0.54159 adopted for the 2024 tax year
  98. Valuing property: limitation on residence homestead value increases · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved
    Supports: A residence homestead's appraised value may not rise more than 10% a year once the owner has qualified in the preceding and current year
  99. Property tax protests and appeals · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved
    Supports: A protest deadline of 15 May or 30 days after the appraisal district mails the notice of appraised value, whichever is later
  100. 2020 block assignment files, Texas: unified school districts and places · United States Census Bureau · retrieved
    Supports: Read with the 2020 redistricting file's block populations, at https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2020/data/01-Redistricting_File--PL_94-171/Texas/tx2020.pl.zip, Of the City of San Antonio's 1,434,625 residents in 2020: 468,901 in Northside ISD, 368,830 in North East ISD, 298,175 in San Antonio ISD, 59,802 in Harlandale ISD, 56,792 in Edgewood ISD and 45,376 in South San Antonio ISD, 298,175 of San Antonio ISD's 300,690 residents inside the city, and 468,901 of Northside ISD's 665,676
  101. 2025 Gazetteer files: places, Texas · United States Census Bureau · retrieved
    Supports: A land area of 498.979 square miles and a water area of 5.735 square miles for San Antonio city
  102. Extraterritorial Jurisdiction (ETJ) · City of San Antonio Planning Department · retrieved
    Supports: The ETJ as the unincorporated land within five miles of the City's boundaries and not within another city's limits or ETJ, The area in which the City may annex land, with the consent of the landowner or voter approval, Senate Bill 2038, effective 1 September 2023, establishing a petition and election process for releasing property from a city's ETJ
  103. ETJ planning · City of San Antonio Planning Department · retrieved
    Supports: Two Military Protection Areas, within five miles of Camp Bullis and the Lackland Training Annex, developed as a direct result of a 2017 state law curtailing unilateral annexation by Texas cities
  104. Annexation and growth management policy, adopted 31 August 2023 · City of San Antonio Planning Department · retrieved
    Supports: Senate Bill 6 (2017) curtailing the annexation powers of cities in counties of more than 500,000 people, such as San Antonio, and requiring landowner or voter approval, Elections called in 2018 for areas within five miles of Camp Bullis-Camp Stanley and Lackland Air Force Base-Medina Training Annex, where owners chose land use controls rather than annexation, Chapter 382 public improvement districts created by the county with the City's written consent as the most common special district request
  105. Public improvement districts and special districts · City of San Antonio Planning Department · retrieved
    Supports: Special districts in the City's ETJ, including Chapter 382 public improvement districts, also called special improvement districts, water control and improvement districts and fresh water supply districts, Districts created by the county at a landowner's request with the City's consent, conditioned through development agreements
  106. Our history · CPS Energy · retrieved
    Supports: The nation's largest public power, natural gas and electric company, serving more than 996,000 electric and 399,000 natural gas customers, $10.6 billion in revenue generated for the City of San Antonio since 1942, Acquired by the City of San Antonio on 24 October 1942
  107. Edwards Aquifer · San Antonio Water System · retrieved
    Supports: About 47%, some 154,000 acre-feet, of the water SAWS customers used in 2025 came from the Edwards Aquifer, Permitted withdrawals subject to cutbacks of zero to 44% in critical periods
  108. Water supplies · San Antonio Water System · retrieved
    Supports: In 1995 all of San Antonio's water came from the Edwards Aquifer; SAWS now manages 13 supply projects from seven sources
  109. Stage 3 watering rules · San Antonio Water System · retrieved
    Supports: Stage 3 rules in effect on 30 September 2026: landscape watering once a week, on the customer's day, from 5 to 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. to midnight
  110. Stormwater fee · San Antonio Water System · retrieved
    Supports: SAWS bills the City of San Antonio's stormwater fee on the City's behalf, Residential rates of $3.75 a month up to 2,750 square feet of impervious area, $4.94 to 4,220 square feet and $10.45 above it
  111. Solid waste rates and fees · City of San Antonio Solid Waste Management Department · retrieved
    Supports: Monthly totals of $19.76, $25.26 and $35.75 for the small, medium and large garbage cart, including the $3.00 solid waste and $2.00 parks environmental fees, The fee shown and collected on the CPS Energy bill, with no additional fee for the recycling and organics carts
  112. June 11 to 12, 2025 San Antonio area flood event · National Weather Service, Austin/San Antonio · retrieved
    Supports: 13 fatalities from flooding across the San Antonio area, 12 in the Beitel Creek basin and one in the Leon Creek basin, 15 vehicles swept into Beitel Creek from the Loop 410 frontage road near Perrin Beitel Road, 3.98 inches of rain in one hour at San Antonio International Airport, the highest hourly rate on record since 1934
  113. San Antonio, TX · Texas State Historical Association, Handbook of Texas · retrieved
    Supports: The flood of 9 and 10 September 1921, which put up to twelve feet of water downtown and killed at least fifty-one people, and the Olmos Dam and river bypass built after it
  114. Home, flood, wind: which policies do you need? · Texas Department of Insurance · retrieved
    Supports: Most home policies do not cover floods; a flood policy covers damage from rising water
  115. Primary Mortgage Market Survey, 24 September 2026 · Freddie Mac · retrieved
    Supports: A 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaging 7.03%, up from 6.95% the week before and 6.30% a year earlier
  116. Texas homeowners insurance market overview · Texas Department of Insurance · retrieved
    Supports: A statewide average homeowners premium of $3,489 a year
  117. How much is homeowners insurance in San Antonio, TX? · Insure.com · retrieved
    Supports: An average San Antonio premium of $2,866 a year for $300,000 of dwelling cover, $100,000 of liability and a $1,000 deductible, updated 27 May 2026, An average of $2,222 a year for $200,000 of dwelling cover
  118. Texas homeowners insurance · NerdWallet · retrieved
    Supports: An average San Antonio premium of $4,565 a year for $500,000 of dwelling cover, $300,000 of liability and a $1,000 deductible, updated 20 February 2026
  119. Renters insurance in Texas · NerdWallet · retrieved
    Supports: An average San Antonio renters premium of $167 a year, $14 a month, for $30,000 of personal property, updated 23 September 2026
  120. Monthly homeowners' association and condominium fee, tables B25142 and B25143, 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimates, San Antonio city · United States Census Bureau, via the Census Reporter API · retrieved
    Supports: A median monthly association fee of $60 among San Antonio owner-occupied units that pay one, 110,122 of 295,530 owner-occupied units, or 37.3%, paying such a fee, and 4,864 paying $500 or more a month
  121. Homeownership Incentive Programs (HIP) · City of San Antonio Neighborhood and Housing Services Department · retrieved
    Supports: HIP 80: $1,000 to $30,000 as a 0% interest, no-payment second loan, the first $15,000 forgiven over five years and the rest over ten, on an existing home up to $260,000 or a new one up to $284,000, with 2026 income limits of $56,350 for one person to $80,500 for four, HIP 120: $1,000 to $15,000, 75% forgiven over ten years and 25% perpetual, on an existing home up to $301,700 or a new one up to $332,800, with income limits of $84,500 for one person to $120,700 for four, A HUD-approved eight-hour homebuyer class, a home inside the city limits and a $500 minimum earnest money deposit
  122. HIP 80 and HIP 120 general information · City of San Antonio Neighborhood and Housing Services Department · retrieved
    Supports: Both programs for income-eligible first-time homebuyers buying a primary residence, which must pass a HIP property review and inspection, The remaining balance repaid in part on a change of ownership, a sale or a cash-out refinance, from this sheet and the HIP 120 sheet at https://www.sa.gov/files/assets/main/v/5/nhsd/documents/hip120-generalinformation.pdf