Move out of Houston, Tx?

I'm 30, my wife is 27 and 7 months pregnant with our first kid. I work for an oil company in IT and my wife works for the city of Houston in the water district. we make about 100k a year together.

We are thinking of getting out of Houston for a few reasons. Well we actually live in Spring but its pretty much attached to Houston. This is such a ginormous city.

I drive 60 miles a day round trip to work and back, my wife about the same. We both have 4 cylinder vehicles for the reason of high gas prices, but still expensive to have to fill up all the time. Just about everywhere you want to go, you have to drive a ways.

There is sooo much crime here all the time. I mean you cant even turn on the news without hearing about robberies, murders, violence. I live in a nice part of town, too. You just cant escape it here. 2 weeks ago 4 guys robbed a store and got chased by police. They went to my parents neighborhood and hid in my parents backyard! There was helicopters and like 25 police cars and K9 units running through my parents yard. One of the guys started shooting at the police and they fired back and killed the guy. It was all over the news! Just today a similar situation happened in my neighborhood. Jesus Christ!

I know anywhere you go there is going to be crime. But I also know that in smaller towns there is a lot less violence, crime, traffic, pollution, over-population, and all the things that come with living in big cities.

My wife and I are thinking of moving to somewhere else in Texas. Like a smaller town like Bastrop, Brenham those kind of smalller cities. Anyone in smaller towns can put their opinion in please. I really dont want to raise my daughter in this big city. What small town do you know of that would be good to look at? What are advantage/disadvantages are to moving to small city coming from Houston. I was born and always have lived in Houston.

Thank you for all comments and feedback.

Erik