Is Dallas for me?
 

Hi folks, I am forming an exploratory committee of myself and all of yall to explore the possibility of me living in Dallas (or neighboring cities). Let me tell you what I love, in no particular order.

• Highrises
• Floor to ceiling windows
• Proximity to grocery stores
• Proximity to bars/restaurants
• Cheap gas + fast cars

And what I don't like

• Traffic. I know we all hate traffic, but I hate it on a whole new level
• Being far from big airports
• Paying more than $1500 for rent (I pay $~2500 now, but I expect Dallas to be cheaper than DC
• Mexican food
• Tex-mex food
• Guns
• Raised trucks

And what I do not care about

• Schools (no kids)

Is Dallas for me? From a quick look on apartments.com there seem to be a lot of new highrises and they are all very modern. I also know that the traffic in and around Dallas is awful. How is the DART rail? Is cost of living in Dallas really that much cheaper than DC? What about neighboring cities?

Well, if you want high rise living, that eliminates most of the surrounding cities, so you're looking at Dallas, and for bars/restaurants/groceries, the Uptown area is likely your best bet. But it's also one of the pricier areas, so you'll have to research rents to see if it's in your budget.

But in general, yes, it's cheaper here. Cheaper rents, cheaper houses, cheaper beer. And no state income tax.

Traffic can be bad at times, but compared to the cluster-f that DC calls rush hour, I think you'll find it's better than that.

There's lots of good mex and tex-mex food, but if you don't like it, eat someplace else. We have BBQ too. :) And french, vietnamese, modern american, and whatever else you're looking for - the restaurant scene has improved a lot here over recent years.

Guns, I don't know. I was not happy when "open carry" passed here, but months later, I myself have yet to see a civilian with a gun.

All good to know. And yes DC traffic is bad, but fortunately I take the metro everywhere, and just pay $125/month to park my Mercedes underground (like how Daenerys treats her two dragons). With that said, the few times I have driven to IAD/BWI to pick up / drop off friends, I've seen some bad traffic, and I'm sure that's far from the worst the DMV area has to offer.

I have lived in Dallas for years now and still contemplate on moving out of Texas. The low cost of living and my job is what keeps me here.

* High-rises are pretty much are only in the Dallas or Fort Worth core area and they are expensive.
* Proximity to things are possible depending on the area. Uptown is better.
* Cheap gas and fast cars is a common thing. The Dallas metroplex is actually quite wealthy so it's not uncommon to see exotics. Hang around Highland Park or Plano and BMWs and Mercedes are as common as Hondas and Toyotas. Cars and Coffee is the first Saturday of every month and you will see everything from Bugattis to antiques.

* Traffic in Dallas sucks especially during rush hour. But most people live in the suburbs so no way of avoiding it unless you can walk to work or work from home.
* If you live in the Dallas core, the closest airport is Love Field. DFW is going to be about 30-45 minutes away. At least you can take the train straight to DFW airport now.
* Rent in Dallas can be expensive in the prime areas. I was paying about $1200 for a 800 sq foot apartment in downtown Las Colinas. My friends in uptown and downtown pay closer to $2000. Most people buy houses for that price.
* Mexican and Tex-Mex is everywhere. I'm not a big fan of them either, but Dallas has a range of restaurants. No Michelin star restaurants, but we have good BBQ and steak. Some decent seafood. A good range of ethnic restaurants.
* Guns are also common. People love their guns here.
* I don't see many raised trucks.

I find Dallas boring since the only thing to really do is eat out and shop. You really have to be able to deal with the heat since the summers can be weeks of 100+F. The cost of living and the number of professional jobs is the saving grace in my opinion.

Is Forth Worth a viable alternative to downtown/uptown Dallas? Is it a lot quieter in FW than Dallas? I'll look into buying a high rise condo two years or so after moving there, if I find my job to be stable.

Fort Worth is quite different than Dallas...it's more lay back...more country in a sense. In terms of more quiet, I think it all depends on the area for both cities. Downtown Dallas is pretty dead at night and on the weekends. Yeah, you have Deep Ellum, Uptown, Victory Park, maybe the Bishop Art District, but it's not lively as other major downtowns around the US. Fort Worth has a nice downtown with Sundance Square.

The problems with jobs in the DFW area is a lot of times they are in the suburbs. The cities around Dallas are quite large...with some being larger than Dallas itself. So it's not uncommon to have a 30-60 minute commute one way. A lot of the big companies are moving to Plano and the Frisco area. Toyota's NA HQ is opening up soon in Plano. Frito-Lay's HQ is in Plano. Verizon's Texas HQ is in Irving. Exxon, Microsoft, Intuit...so many companies are spread out around the Dallas area. The companies that reside in downtown are usually the well known financial and accounting firms. So it depends on your line of work on where you may end up in the metroplex. When people say they are from Dallas, few actually live and work in Dallas proper.

Of course it's the humidity that's the killer... :)

Dallas's reputation in the arts is high and growing, an example being the opera company, which has a splendid new home and which programs some adventurous fare.

Dallas usually has a dry heat so it's not too bad. Houston is much worse in terms of humidity. In the summer, it's AC home to AC car to AC office and then in reverse. I grew up in MA so I don't like the heat.

But yes, Dallas is going through a revitalization. The Farmer's Market is getting a make over. There's the Dallas Museum of Art, Perot Museum, and etc. I do like the Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth though.

Living in uptown Dallas and commuting to Irving, Plano, or Fort Worth is not realistic? What about living outside and commuting in?

Oh it's realistic, but expect the drive to be 30-45 minutes. You can take the DART train, but it works better if you live in the suburbs and work in downtown Dallas. People usually drive to the train station, park their car, and take the train to downtown. Commuting outside will be dependent if your employer is close to a train station.

You really don't want to drive between Dallas and Fort Worth as a daily commute although they do have a train. The public transportation system here isn't as good as other major cities. I drive about 45 minutes each way to work. I have coworkers who drive 1 hour and more. That's just the nature of things because it's so spread out here.

Everyone drives here and they drive fast. Our speed limit is usually between 60-70 MPH, but people tend to average 80 MPH. It's not uncommon to see people hitting 100 MPH on the tollroads, but if you get pull over going that fast then you're going to jail.

My advice to people who rent is to find a place close to your employer if you don't like to commute.

Living in Uptown and commuting to Irving and Plano is very realistic, as you are going against the flow. Yes, it will probably take a half hour, but it isn't like you are stuck in traffic. Ft Worth, no. (I'm sure there are some that do it, I too have coworkers that commute an hour+, but that is not what I would choose.)

Don't count on DART. I know the WMATA has issues, but DART is not on the same level. You might luck out and it will work for you, but go in with the assumption that it will not. But for all of this, do you know where your office might be? That will affect the answers given.

Not yet, but in banking for sure. And that includes big banks and auto finance and excludes small/private investment firms.

You'll find most of the larger banking institutions centered around Downtown Dallas or farther north in the Plano / Frisco area with a few public financial companies dotted up and down the Dallas North Tollway. Capital One has Card/Auto/Mortgage housed in Plano as well.


JP Morgan is moving from Dallas to Frisco in 18 months with higher level executives still being Downtown for now.


The Uptown area hits most all of your positive data points, depending on where you decide to office.


The DART system is horrible unless you live off 75 where it primarily runs north and south to the suburbs, or directly in Downtown.

Interesting. So you're not a subscriber to the Dallas Opera which performs in a nice new opera house? Ditto for the symphonies in DAL and FTW? Must not care for art either since you don't realize that the Nasher Sculpture Center is a great museum dedicated to sculpture. Nor acknowledge the existence of the Dallas Museum of Art or the outstanding series of musuems (Kimbell, Amon Carter, Modern, etc.) in Ft. Worth's cultural district.

I take it you don't like being outdoors either since there are nice hiking and biking nature trails not too far from downtown.

(No, DFW is certainly not Northern California when it comes to scenery. But there are still nice places to get out for fresh air and a great hike)

If you're close to 35, it's not too bad either.

Nope, I'm not into the arts that much. I have never been to the opera, but have seen a musical at Fair Park and ballet at the Bass. I also have been to Nasher, DMA, Kimbell, Crow, and a few others a few times but it's really not my cup of tea.

I enjoy being outdoors, but not in Dallas. I've skied, ziplined and ATV in Whistler/Blackcomb, sea kayak in Broken Group Islands, salmon fishing in the Alberni Inlet, skied and snow mobile around Lake Tahoe, camped and sauna in Finland, hiked in Iceland, climbed mountains on Vancouver Island, walked around SE Asia, and so on. To me, the hiking and biking trails around Dallas just pale in comparison even to the ones in Austin. I've even kayak on Lake Lewisville and White Rock and it's just depressing to me. And when the temperature starts going up, I find the air more suffocating than refreshing.

I don't care much for arts/music/opera or anything rich a-holes would refer to as "the finer things in life". I also do not care much for hiking. But I do love good food - everything from bbq to fancy gastromolecular cuisines. What I also love is traveling. How is the airfare out of DFW/DAL for weekend get aways? DC, surprisingly, is not as cheap as I thought even with the competition of three airports. Weekend get aways to NY/BOS is about $350, Miami usually $500+, Atlanta usually ~$500, etc. Is that the standard price now for short haul domestic F? In terms of long haul, I go to Asia for vacations. I imagine in a few years miles will be useless, or at least impossible to amass for someone who does not travel for work. In NY there are often good business fares to Asia for <$3500, what about from DFW? Actually the last one doesn't matter since I still have enough miles to last me two more years, maybe by that time I'll be ready to move again.

I'm more about the food myself. You'll find plenty of good BBQ in the DFW area. For Texas BBQ, there's Pecan Lodge in Deep Ellum and Lockhart BBQ in the Bishop Arts District if you want to stay close to the Dallas core. Venture to the suburbs and you have Meat U Anywhere in Grapevine or Hutchins in McKinney. If you like Korean BBQ, I like the ones by Old K-Town off of I-35 and Royal and would say it's similar to what you find in Annandale, VA. You're not going to really find any gastromolecular cuisine here...Stephan Pyles used to do it, but that was awhile ago. As I said earlier, no Michelin restaurants. If you like a good steak, my go to places are Pappa Bros steakhouse and Nick & Sam's, but there's so many of them. Things are getting more trendy with ramen shops popping up and Carlos Bakery just opened up. We got some good sushi restaurants as well.

As for travel, Love Field is home of Southwest and you have JetBlue and Virgin flying out there as well. DFW is AA's HUB so lots of options if you're an AA member. Price is going to be similar...$500+ for F going to NY/BOS, Miami, Atlanta and etc. but there are good deals now and then. The pro for Dallas is that it's right in the middle so you can go east or west coast for about the same cost. When I go to Asia, it's usually AA or Korean for non-stop or 1 stop depending if I am going to China or Vietnam. There's that popular DFW-HKG route. I've seen some cheap discount economy seats out of DFW to SE Asia for $600-$700 and just use miles to upgrade.

Well obviously comparing a landlocked city like Dallas to mountainous coastal locales like BC or countries with tiny populations such as Finland and Iceland isn't a fair comparison. Apples to oranges.

As far as inland cities go, the DFW area isn't a bad place to live. There's certainly plenty to do beyond eating and shopping.

I don't like the summer weather here. But there are lots of places where the summer weather is worse.

Awesome, good grilled food and good sushi is enough. No need for gastro. They're too expensive and pretentious to eat everyday anyway.

As of flights - I don't have any miles/status with AA for upgrades. As a to-be-former UA 1K, most of my miles are banked with UA, with the occasional DL credited to AS. But mostly UA.

One benefit of Dallas is its proximity to areas you would want to take weekend trips to. You can get anywhere in the country in 4 hours or less - usually much less. Also DFW is a big enough hub that international flights to anywhere are plentiful.

JetBlue flies out of DFW. Currently, it is Southwest, Virgin, and Delta at Love.

Going through this list makes me really scratch my head to read some of the things that made it.

http://www.thecrazytourist.com/25-be...-in-dallas-tx/

lol you want to live in texas but you made a point of telling everyone you dislike guns trucks and tex mex?

good luck

there's always austin too, that's the least texas place in texas and some people like that apparently :confused:

In fairness, he did tell all of us that he drives a Mercedes. Seems pretty Dallas to me.

:D i was thinking the same too. that and highrises close to whole foods.

I do not want to live Texas, but I am exploring the possibility of it, so I'll have an idea of if I should even bother applying for jobs there. I was being facetious when I said I do not like guns and raised truck, but it still yielded some non-flaming and assuring answers. However, if you would like to have a pragmatic discussion on guns and raised trucks we can meet at the PR board.

I do not like Whole Foods.

why do you want to move somewhere you don't want to live in? :confused: being that you hate traffic and want to be close to an airport, why not charleston or savannah?

with all due respect, this type of attitude (i don't actually want to move here, i hate rednecks) is why texans are getting annoyed with outsiders moving in. there is this perception (somewhat right, somewhat distorted) that outsiders are moving in with cali and washington and nyc plates talking about how redneck they perceive texas and how they don't want to be there while they take advantage of low taxes, more personal liberty, variety in housing. growing up in a boom town in canada, i absolutely relate to this.



i mean a transfer is one thing, but choosing to apply for a jobs in a place you do not want? and while i realized you were facetious, why would you bring up your dislike of guns in the same sentence of whether you want to move to the lone star state or not? this is like me saying i want to move to california, well, not really, but i want fast cars and cheap flights. oh but i hate priuses and pinkos.

texas is lovely. dallas is a city just like any other us city. dallas people are uppity and the last place i'd want to live in texas (right down there with austin), but far better than most cities in the usa imo.

you do not like whole foods? well at least there's h e b.
surprisingly, whole foods can be as cheap as the groceries if you shop around, i just go there for 6 pack of lone star tall boys that are cheaper than kroger.

Because my career is more important than the few hours I have on weekends to actually interact with the city I live in. Why not Charleston or Savannah? Why not Bali or the Bahamas? Why not heaven by the pearly gates? Because there are no American banks offices there that have the jobs related to what I do.

I don't like guns, but as one person above who is actually helpful said, he does not see open carry and does not see open carry as an issue. I didn't say I hate rednecks (you took the liberty of calling yourself that, not me). You think I hate rednecks, which since you said it, seems like a redneck thing to do, you know, ignoring truths and allowing your perceptions to replace reality. Sorry I take that back, it seems more like a closed-minded, bumptiously self-assuming, and self-righteous people thing, not a redneck thing. You want to change people's perception of rednecks, your contribution here certainly does not help.

wow

maybe you should just visit dallas for a weekend

and see if it is right for you

one thing for sure is that it's a lot less of a confrontational place than the east, that's for sure

but i will repeat that texans, like anyone, don't take kindly to people who just move to a place to take advantage of some job opportunity and enjoy all the benefits of that place unrelated to that space. same with where i grew up in canada, my friends and i absolutely hate transplants from toronto who just come for a job and then leave when the commodity goes down. going around life espousing that sort of "well i don't really want to be here mentality (and .....ing how everything isn't american-precise) is why i had no friends in south africa the first 6 months i lived there

maybe just go head first and find out for yourself

it's not like you're an economic migrant in the global south who has nothing and is throwing the dice by moving to the nearest city

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/us...exas.html?_r=0

a lot of banks have presences in san antonio houston and new orleans too ja?

who said rednecks are intolerant? "progressives" can be just as intolerant

Confrontational? Yes, but not unsolicited.

Progressives, whatever they are, are intolerant of parochial views and expired ways, rednecks seems to be often intolerant of change and people different from them. And the world is not constant.

I will visit there one day and see for myself. I won't be moving to Texas to just take advantage of tax unless national income tax becomes exempt too. I'm moving there for a job, and I wouldn't call it taking advantage of job opportunities... People apply to jobs in cities different than the ones they live in, no? All financial institutions have branches and offices everywhere, but my job is not a bank teller. The jobs I do are mostly scattered in and around Dallas.

sounds like
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/op...tolerance.html

good luck

hopefully you won't see any open carry or xenophobia

Thanks, I know I need it. Bigotry and ignorance must be aplenty if it spread as far as CPT.

Based on the tone of the last several posts, I'm going to say no.

Dallas has access to a busy DFW hub and a lot of options for flights. It has modern living arrangements available and access to plenty of good food, shopping, etc. Public transportation is a little sporadic but if you are along the
DART line then it's quite convenient. All in all, I think it could suit your lifestyle, but based on the fact that you don't really want to live here, I would continue to explore my options.

Personally, I would say that this is the definition of Dallas: people who moved here to take advantage of some job opportunity.

Yes, there are native Dallasites, but in the 17 years I have been here, my opinion is that Dallas has an odd identity just because so many people have come from other states and countries. And to reiterate, I said odd, not bad. I don't think anyone in Dallas would act poorly towards anyone else who came here for a job.

The demographics of the area tell part of that story:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demogr...las–Fort_Worth

Why does it have to be "take advantage" of job opportunity? If you had a great opportunity at a place different from yours, you would turn it down because it would require you to move somewhere just to "take advantage" of a job opportunity? If you are in pharma somewhere outside of NJ, does moving to NJ for a good job at Merck mean that you are taking advantage of something? I don't understand why moving somewhere for a job is so heinous.

Because other than UA's hub attacks on DFW and the cheap fares that go with it there are no redeeming qualities to the Metroplex.

OK, Fort Worth has some charm, but Dallas just sux. IMHO of course.

It's about the cost of living. No state income tax, sales tax is about 8.25%, gas price is one of the lowest in the US, and you can get a good house for the money. There is also abundant IT, finance, accounting, and health care jobs in the DFW metroplex. Those are the reasons that have kept me here. I personally wouldn't mind living in Seattle or Vancouver, but the cost of living is so much higher.

Everyone has mentioned Uptown but, I feel that you're getting a very narrow cross-section of...views here.

There is an area called Turtle Creek that is near to Uptown but, separate, and is slightly older and more established. It fits what you're looking for perfectly.

The difference between the two is not much on the surface. It would best be described as, like, Uptown is for the young and upwardly mobile. Turtle Creek is for those who have arrived and are there to stay.

Dallas is a cosmopolitan city - I recall that executive-level turnover is something on the order of 40% yty. Cur's comments are not representative of your demographic, or where you want to live.

The sterotypes - lifted trucks and overt gun culture - are much more...ingrained in the Northern suburbs. The culture up in McKinney, Frisco, Plano, etc...the Ed Hardy, lifted F250, and 3K dollar AR-15 - all bought on credit - is simply not present in the high-rise...culture that exists in Downtown and Turtle Creek.

One thing that you need to keep in mind. You're going to be driving more here than in DC.

There are several websites dedicated to high-rise living in Dallas. I suggest checking those out.


Good luck. Hope you find what you're looking for.