I have visited Dallas for a few weeks and I was pleasantly surprised, no cowboy hats, no horses tied up outside. I didn’t see the whole Dallas-Fort Worth area, but what I did see seemed quite livable to me.
So why all the negativity about Dallas? What bad things did I miss?
It’s a very NOT down-to-earth area to live in. Or at least, that’s the attitude that the city seems to emit. It seems to celebrate conspicuous consumption and being ostentatious.
There’s a reason Dallas seems to be the big, bleached blonde hair and fake boobs capitol of Texas…
Personally, I much prefer the down-to-earth, blue collar feel of Houston, or the live-and-let-live funkiness of Austin to Dallas, as far as that goes.
However, Dallas is(well, was) better for me career-wise, so here I am.
It is in Texas?
Sorry, texans…of all the states I have visited or lived in I really have to place Texas at the top of my list for asshattery and rudeness. I have yet to have anything more than a ‘meh’ hotel experience [they are paid to be more or less civil to customers] and have had a few downright seriously rude experiences. Yes, I really love the vaunted flower of chivalry known as the Texas Man blatently tell me that No, he doesnt have a jack in his PICKUP TRUCK that I can use to jack up my dainty little vw Golf to change my own freaking tire…because it wont hold the weight <BOGGLE BOGGLE BOGGLE> and No, I cant enter the VFW to use their payphone, I am not a member…my freaking husband is just in the military, and my father is only the honcho in his chapter of the VFW… at least the freaking cop I had to flag down radioed and got AAA for me.
Blame mrAru for removing the jack to put stuff in the car for me and forgetting to put it back in just before I get to drive across the country…but he got the idea that I was a tad irked at him when he got back from sea…
Traffic was the worse thing I could remember about living in Dallas. Other then that it wasn’t any worse then most other large cities.
Marc
Dallas is great, but it is much more “eastern” in feel than “western.” (Had you made it to Fort Worth, you would have seen all the cowboys your heart could desire. Well, Fort Worth, or any of a hundred small towns outside Dallas.)
For me it was a great city – lots to do, easily navigable, culture and anti-culture. But I think to Texans, Dallas feels “fake,” maybe because of its aspirations toward sophistication. And, I must admit, there are pockets of Dallas where the women are jaw-dropping caricatures of vacuous, big-haired bitchy morons. (Of course, here in So Cal, we have that, too, except without the big hair.)
But overall, it’s a great city, perhaps overshadowed only by Austin. (Sorry, bump, but Houston’s an armpit.) Any negativity toward Dallas is more about its “aspirations” than anything else. I’d move back there, if the call came.
Very pretentious, worse than L.A. Rednecks with money. Interesting thing, the plans drawn up when secession was considered didn’t include Dallas.
What BIG city has better traffic conditions than Dallas? I’m not trying to be a wise-guy, I just can’t think of any BIG city that has better traffic conditions.
I can’t disagree…
Although, one nice thing about Dallas compared to say LA, San Francisco, New York, etc., is that if you’re willing to commute 45 minutes to 1 hour you can live in some very pretty rural areas for an affordable (for your typical middle-class schmo) price.
Cite?
Here are some plusses for the much-maligned city:
Great dining, and not just in Tex-Mex food. There are many, many restaurants in Dallas, and even if only 10% of them are any good, that’s till 97,361 good restaurants (admittedly a Texas-size exaggeration).
World-class shopping. An example would be the Galleria. Neiman-Marcus and the late Sanger-Harris began in Dallas. Southern women – and I say this without any negativity – want to look good, and thus fashion and cosmetics are major businesses there (Mary Kay Cosmetics was founded there).
Along with big-city cultural institutions such as museums, theaters and symphonies, as well as a hip Melrose Avenue-type area known as Deep Ellum. There is an active gay community in Turtle Creek. Every major sports league has a team there.
Perhaps one thing missing is a major college, but SMU provides pretty well for that in music, theater and athletics. U.S. News & World Reports places SMU between Michigan State and BYU in overall quality.
Spring and fall are very pleasant, there’s lots of undeveloped land, and it doesn’t suffer the humidity or pollution of Houston. It’s not a long drive to party in New Orleans. It had its own show. And it’s in a state with no income tax.
“I’ve had bad hotel experiences” doesn’t quite qualify as a review of the overall city, IMHO. Yes, there are hicks. New York and Los Angeles have unsophisticated pickup-truck drivers, too.
Considered? Texas seceded, and took Dallas with it. Cite?
Here are some plusses for the much-maligned city:
Great dining, and not just in Tex-Mex food. There are many, many restaurants in Dallas, and even if only 10% of them are any good, that’s till 97,361 good restaurants (admittedly a Texas-size exaggeration).
World-class shopping. An example would be the Galleria. Neiman-Marcus and the late Sanger-Harris began in Dallas. Southern women – and I say this without any negativity – want to look good, and thus fashion and cosmetics are major businesses there (Mary Kay Cosmetics was founded there).
Along with big-city cultural institutions such as museums, theaters and symphonies, as well as a hip Melrose Avenue-type area known as Deep Ellum. There is an active gay community in Turtle Creek. Every major sports league has a team there.
Perhaps one thing missing is a major college, but SMU provides pretty well for that in music, theater and athletics. U.S. News & World Reports places SMU between Michigan State and BYU in overall quality.
Spring and fall are very pleasant, there’s lots of undeveloped land, and it doesn’t suffer the humidity or pollution of Houston. It’s not a long drive to party in New Orleans. It had its own show. And it’s in a state with no income tax.
“I’ve had bad hotel experiences” doesn’t quite qualify as a review of the overall city, IMHO. Yes, there are hicks. New York and Los Angeles have unsophisticated pickup-truck drivers, too.
It’s full of Texans. Sorry, no cite.
JasonG
I meant in recent years, I’m hunting down a map for ya.
Its a great place to be robbed. It has the most crime of per capita of the ten largest cities. Half the people I know have had their cars broken into.
Downtown Dallas is kind of a deserted wasteland. I know, I live there. You walk around Downtown on a Saturday or Sunday and it looks like world has been taken over by zombies, I mean the most the most lifeless homeless I’ve ever seen. In Dallas they are too sad to even beg.
On the plus side, it isn’t Houston.
Bad acting, ridiculous scripts,…oh, wait a minute…
I was thinking the same thing until I discovered UTD.
Well, I think some of it comes from certain people already having a preconcieved idea that we’re all just a bunch of trash talking hicks. So if you walk into a bar or reastraunt or whatever with that kind of attitude; Well, people are going to pick up on that and you get the same in return. So basicaly it’s like a self for filling prophecy.
Just because you might hear some one talking with a “Texas Twang” doesn’t equal stupid. Besides even if they aren’t the smartest person in the world doesn’t mean they aren’t good people.
I will admit though, I have seen my fair share of “It’s all about the money” mentality here in Dallas which seems a little superficial in my book. But doesn’t every big city have that?
Back in the Seventies and Eighties, there used to be a heated but friendly rivalry between Houston and Dallas, the two biggest cities in Texas. Both cities made a lot of their wealth in oil, but Houston had a more blue collar feel, with workers in shipping, petrochemical refining and heavy construction along with the folks who worked in the oilfields. A lot of the people in Dallas had moved there from small towns nearby, and the mixture of small-town conservatism and fundamentalism with an attempt at big city sophistication just seemed a little… odd. Dallas also liked to show off its wealth, no matter how tacky it appeared to the rest of the world. I’m sure that some Dallasites had some reason to dislike Houston, but those reasons were all unfounded.
It’s been a long time since I thought about it (I haven’t even been to Houston this century… or Dallas for that matter), so much of this may be outdated. All the same, here goes:
[ul][li]Edie Brickell is the hippest thing to come out of Dallas. I don’t need to say anything else. Memphis has Elvis; there’s some hick town in East Texas that Michelle Shocked once called home, but Dallas has Edie…[/li]
[li]Wearing Neiman Marcus clothes and big diamonds that offset your big and/or platinum hair to attend a prayer breakfast is not stylish. It may be tacky or ostentatious, but it is not stylish.[/li]
[li]Did you see Laura Bush’s facelift?[/li]
[li]How many Dallasites does it take to screw in a light bulb? Every freaking one of 'em. One does it and everyone else talks about how greeaat the new lightbulb is and how much it must have cost.[/li]
[li]Look at H. Ross Perot. Look at him, just look at him![/li]
[li]Spanish is a foreign language there.[/li]
[li]They shot JFK, and some of them still get their backs up when you say it. I don’t know why.[/li]
[li]To the University of Texas sophmores from Oak Cliff, do not come to Austin and talk about how it would be a great place if it wasn’t so liberal. Take the good with the bad, and drive your Mercedes home for the weekend. I think Edie is playing somewhere on Saturday night.[/li]
[li]If a look at H. Ross Perot didn’t convince you, then take a second look. Still not convinced? Check out Bill Clements:[/li]
[/ul]
Yes, but in New York, they drive vans. Harder to steal stuff out of the back of.
I’ve heard numerous Dallasites use this phrase: “Dallas is a great place to live, but I wouldn’t want to visit there.” Just the opposite of the old New York cliche.
That is, Dallas has almost all the things that people could ask for in a hometown, but almost NOTHING that would entice tourists, or endear itself to them.
So, a lot of sophisticated people who visit Dallas come away thinking, “Why the hell would anyone live here? There’s nothing to see or do!” In reality, there’s plenty to see and do if you’re there year-round (they have a superb symphony orchestra, some pretty good theater and their museums frequently have outstanding exhibits). There just isn’t likely to be anything to see or do the one weekend you happen to be there.
As for the secession crack… well, remember that Dallas didn’t become a large city until after World War 2. In 1861, if it existed at all, it was a very small town that no one would have paid much attention to. We could say the same of many large Sun Belt cities (think Phoenix or Miami were metropolises a hundred years ago?).
You would? I guess I must miss all those cowboys among all the men and women dressed in their business clothes. Pray tell, outside of a couple of festivals, where are all these cowboys?
