Economically, I mean. Please leave all “red-state/blue-state” political baggage at the door.
I recently spent a weekend in Dallas. The house we stayed in was huge (by New York City standards), and according to a real estate agent we met there, would not cost what our little attached house in Queens does. From what I understand, Texas has no state income tax, and gas prices are much lower than in New York. I already work from home, so I could conceivably keep my current job, so the job market there doesn’t matter to me. Also, the speed limits are much more reasonable than in New York.
I’m an Orthodox Jew, so I know that Kosher food is not as ubiquitously available in Dallas as in New York City, but it can be had, and I was very impressed with what I heard of the Jewish schools there as well.
But I’m sure the grass isn’t always greener - what (aside from the costs of the actual move) would I be paying more for if I and my family traded the Van Wyck Expressway for the I-35?
P. S. Don’t need answer fast. Just curious, not serious…yet.
Dallas won’t give you as much access to world-class museums and opera companies. Public transportation ain’t great down there. Summer weather can get pretty hot.
But as far as jobs, cost of living, and schools are concerned, Dallas wins in a landslide. According to this site, New York-to-Texas movers outnumber those going the other way by almost three to one, and it’s probably not a coincidence.
Dallas does have a decent opera company, and Fort Worth has some good museums.
The down side is you will have to have a car for every adult in the family.
Want groceries? Have to drive.
Want to go to the doctor? Give up the idea of getting a taxi.
Want to go to A and spouse wants to go to B? You’re going to need two cars.
You’re also going to have to air condition that huge house. It.Will.Cost.You.
Want to go jog in the park? Yeah, maybe you can find a park. Otherwise you’re going to be running on the street because in Texas people are too cheap to put in sidewalks (except in older areas).
The only food that will be delivered is pizza.
The street signs on the freeway are all at the last minute.
Pretty much everything is cheaper than it is in Queens. Even the fairly high property taxes are less than you pay now.
Winters are shorter and milder.
There’s a lot of Orthodox households, particularly clustered in north Dallas.
It’s a big city, so it has everything that every other big city in the US has: good hospitals, almost any kind of food you want, cultural stuff, high end shopping. Not as much of any of it as in New York, but New York is in a class of its own.
Traffic is not nearly as bad as New York, and parking is easy.
As you noted, good private schools.
Con:
It’s relentlessly hot and dry from May/June through September/October. 100 degrees and cloudless for weeks at stretch. Spring and Fall are frequently hot also.
Public greenspaces are small, usually uninteresting, and frequently lacking shade.
Geography is not favorable for day- or weekend trips. It’s on the southern plains, so the geography is flat, hot, and dry for hours in every direction. Beaches, mountains, and forests are at least 5 hours away. The kind of terrain one typically thinks of as “The West” starts on the other side of the state, a good 8 hours away.
Public transit is so limited you may as well not bother, and you have to phone for a cab.
It’s not as cosmopolitan and diverse as, say, Houston.
There’s a pretty sizeable Jewish community in Dallas; there are several eruvs even, if you’re that kind of Orthodox. Kosher stuff is pretty common in North Dallas as well.
The nightlife is far from only being C&W, for what that’s worth. We have our share of bars and clubs of all kinds- most of the C&W stuff is for the lower-income suburbs like Mesquite
You’ll probably be able to have a fairly large yard and house relative to what you have in NYC, but your utility bills might be higher due to air conditioning.
As for day/weekend trips… it is 5 hours from anything different, except forests, You can likely get to East Texas pine forests pretty fast, but the coast is 5 hours away, and the closest mountains are probably in SW Arkansas.
And you can get plenty of stuff delivered; Chinese, Thai, pizza, and sandwiches come to immediate mind, and there’s much more that you can get takeout- barbecue, Pho’, Southern food, mexican/Tex-mex, etc… Dallas actually has a pretty vibrant restaurant scene, which although traditionally steakhouse centric, has multiple different kinds of restaurants.
The toll roads are pretty clearly marked, and not too pricey; there are really only 3 big ones right now- the Dallas North Tollway, the Pres. George Bush (the 1st) tollway and the Sam Rayburn Tollway. They’re all named “Tollway” so it’s not like you can get confused. And the newer mixed-use one requires you to exit the freeway and re-enter the toll part, so you can’t screw that up unless you’re really not paying attention.
I kind of suspect that everything will be cheaper here, but the tradeoff will be in not having the things that are unique to NYC, or to cities significantly larger than Dallas/Fort Worth.
Not true. There’s Chinese. And there’s also a service that will pretty much deliver from any chain restaurant you want. The link is right there on most of these restaurants websites.
It’s been a while since I’ve been into the night life but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Dallas is rich with diverse forms of entertainment.
Hell, just the other weekend my GF and I went to a “Trumpet jam”. Okay, I don’t know what it’s actually called but they had trumpets, saxophones, and they even had a bag pipe session!
All prices, but especially real estate, will be significantly lower. Real estate will be half or less of what you are used to.
Night life, well I have never lived in New York so perhaps I don’t have the right comparison, but I can’t imagine anyone, going flat out every night, taking advantage of half of what is available in a city of 6.5 million people. My son lived there for several years, and there was never a shortage of places to go things to see.
One difference is transport. You can get a house near public transport (train) if you work downtown, but for the other 95% of the metro area- multiple cars are mandatory for anything at all.
If you can keep your job at your same level of pay economically this move might make sense. If you lose that job though you are SOL. When I left Dallas and moved to NYC I got the equivalent of the exact same job in NYC and made $13,000 a year more just because of location, and that was for a pretty low level position. If you have to switch jobs or your spouse has to switch jobs to relocate you may find that you are taking a significant pay cut to go with your cheaper lifestyle.
Also do not underestimate the costs of having a vehicle, especially if you don’t have one right now. When we move from NYC to the burbs of MA our cost of living actually went up from living in Manhattan. Our quality of life went up tremendously too. A 1500 sq ft apartment! Central air! A dishwasher and a washer and dryer in the apartment! But yeah, adding a car and auto insurance and gas and all that to the mix actually increased our overall monthly expenses.
And dear sweet jeebus, the heat and the bugs and the tornadoes and politics and stuff are not something to ignore in the considering where to live question. This year TX has been pretty wet and cool as far as summer goes, but for the past ten years (and even longer than that if my memory serves) heat so bad it would crack your home foundation and dry up lakes and reservoirs was the norm, not the exception. When it comes to bugs I say welcome to Texas, America’s answer to Australia. New York roaches are nothing compared to the insects that live in the lone star state. And also in a lot of places in Texas (not all, but a lot) the tap water tastes like it came streaming out of satan’s butthole. Do you have kids? Education is something you will want to think about. There are good schools and bad schools in every state, but I can tell you I’ve been in job interviews outside of Texas where interviewers have literally said, “You went to school in Texas? Did they teach you about evolution in science class?” You can get a quality education there but unfortunately there are people who will interpret Texas on your diploma to mean that you were educated about Jesus and oil and not much else.
All that being said, if you went to visit and loved it you should certainly consider the move. I know lots of people who wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. But if you let cost be your only motivating factor in choosing to settle in Dallas you might find yourself unpleasantly surprised by quite a lot before you finish unpacking your boxes.
Actually, the light rail network is pretty developed these days, with 4 different lines (red, blue, green, orange) covering a lot of the city. And the bus network is pretty comprehensive as well.
The main problem is that the bus network is slow as dogshit- I live just shy of 9 miles from where I work(Addison) and driving myself, it takes about 16-17 minutes in the morning and between 20-25 in the evening. There’s a bus route that picks up a couple hundred yards from my front door, and literally drops off in front of my building… nearly an hour later. The rail is pretty sweet though; back when I worked downtown, I used to ride it from downtown to a stop about a mile from my house, and it was about 18 minutes from the stop to my stop, rain or shine, cold or hot, traffic, etc… It was nice- I was home consistently at the same time.
Dallas water is pretty good, but the northern suburbs (anyone served by North Texas Water Authority) does have the Satan’s urine water, as they take it from a lake that has a particularly muddy flavor during the summer, and apparently don’t do anything to it to moderate the taste. I’m not sure what Dallas does, but we don’t have the seasonal nastiness that Plano, Frisco and Richardson do.
I just wanted to reiterate how bad the heat (and humidity – sweet Lord!) are here this year. Being outside five minutes can leave you literally drenched in swear and it’s not uncommon on some 107 degree days, for me to have had three showers. I’m 47 and this is worst I’ve ever experienced. Ugh.
Another downside to all those bugs is tropical diseases. DFW is the national leader in West Nile virus infections. We’re number one! Go Texas! Remember the Alamo and stuff!
Mosquitos are a serious problem for about half the year, and repellent isn’t optional, unless you really enjoy itchiness.
I’ll add that the ONLY reason Dallas is #1 in West Nile cases is because for some perplexing reason, they don’t spray for mosquitoes until AFTER they’re showing positive for the virus.
Places further south like Houston, have regular spraying programs to knock mosquito populations down in general, not just in areas where mosquitoes test positive for diseases. This is mostly because the mosquito populations in places like Houston, Texas City, Corpus, etc… are insane compared to what we have up here, even at the worst of times.
If Dallas sprayed like Houston does, West Nile wouldn’t be an issue at all.
I was born and raised near Chicago but have lived in Texas for 25 years - now in Dallas. You can get used to the heat by keeping the A/C a little warmer, drinking plenty of water, and acclimating yourself by spending time outdoors. The heat in late July through August is high but not really intolerable. Winters on the other hand are paradise compared to the north. Most winters you can get by with a windbreaker and a slightly heavier jacket for the really cold days. We only have a few days of snow a year, and typically the snow is gone in one day (the last few years we’ve had some extended snow days but it’s still nothing like up north). The weather rarely drops below 32 and when it does the meteorologists flip out. Schools close at the mere threat of snow.
NYC has the best of the best, but Dallas is still one of the major cities in the United States. We have very good food, entertainment, etc. It’s a step down, but not much.
I live in northern suburbs and we have very highly ranked schools, plenty of sidewalks, sports are huge and so is exercise. Yes you need a car, but you can find most of what you need.
The landscape is extremely dull, but DFW airport is convenient and you can get anywhere you want to go, often with no connecting flights.
As a lifetime NYer, I find that I could never live that far from an ocean. The few months I spent in San Angelo and the 2.5 years in the British midlands had me pining for ocean air.
Houston’s a better choice. But the move is a win all the way around. As you noticed, housing is better, environment is better, and it gets you out of NYC and into the South where you aren’t buried up to your ass in snow for half the year.
Yeah, “quality seafood” is something that’s probably going to be harder to get/more expensive in Dallas (unless catfish is your preferred fish, then you’re in good shape).