I think some of your answers need to be checked. For example "low priced housing" is somewhat subjective. Certainly CA has the overall higher cost of living but there are some places in CA that are far more affordable than some places in TX. Perhaps that question could be worded differently to be more objective. Also CA is not considered a southwestern state, TX is. And lastly with the number of mountains it has I find it difficult to believe that CA gets less snow than TX. In fact there are several sources that measure CA gets approximately twice the amount of snow as TX.