Lived in Irving for three and a half years, attending the University of Dallas (no, not UT Dallas – big difference). I found Dallas to be a friendly, dynamic city with a touch of sophistication and a big helping of country charm. Of course, you just had to keep your neck out of the wrong neighborhoods.
My only complaint was the traffic. Ye gods, but it was horrible. And in the twelve years since I graduated it’s only gotten worse. Went back for my ten year reunion, and it took me almost an hour to drive through seven miles of Irving traffic at 11:00 in the morning.
Hyperbole for effect, my friend. But it and a lot of other areas have gone from flashy yuppietowns to rundown in no time. It’ll take them a while to catch up to Oak Cliff, though.
w00t! That’s my alma mater. Not a bad Criminal Justice program there.
I live in Plano (right on the line between Plano and Allen actually), and it’s far from a slum. Well, most parts at least. Most of Plano consists of three things: 1) Ginormous malls, 2) ginormous churches, and 3) extra ginormous movie theaters. I only regularly take advantage of number 3 (I go to church in McKinney). It’s nice having lots of shopping around, though. If I ever need to find something, I usually have five or six places within 15 minutes drive from my house. We could use another “Babies ‘R’ Us” though. And a bookstore in Allen for that matter.
I’ve lived in this area since I was 2, and I like it a lot. There are plenty of fun things to do if you’re interested, a good local music scene (no, not as good as Austin, but good), and about a billion places to eat. I do wish there were a few more locally owned places around, and less Chili’s/Friday’s/whatever other generic restaurant of the week, but that’s OK.
Oh, and while our FM radio sucks pretty bad, we finally have Air America! (910 AM) And we have two Freebird’s now (if you eat at Chipolte, you don’t know what you’re missing)! We just need a few more people with multiple head piercings and we’ll be ready to give Austin a challenge for most liberal city in Texas.
Where is that second Freebird’s? I used to live a couple of blocks from the one on greenville, and I ate there at least 3 times a week. Then someone had the fantastic idea to build a Chipotle across the street from it. I’ve never seen more than a couple of cars there at one time.
You think you have bad radio? You should try out OH. We have 3 country stations and an old rock station that sucks. The Eagle may be gone in Dallas, but at least there is the Bone and Live 105.3 for FM talk.
Houston, Dallas, and every other city in this country all have their share of assholes, criminals, cheats, liars, and meanies. The whole “people in my town are swell and friendly while people over in Town X are jerks” argument doesn’t hold much truck with me. I think people often overgeneralize from a couple of bad experiences, or allow their preconceived notions of a place to influence their opinions. (I knew that everyone in France was rude and when I visited I found it it was true! Btw don jaime, I realize you said “some” and I’m not picking on you.)
Bad things about Dallas:
[ul]
[li]The Cowboys play there. Do I even need to continue? :D[/li][li]It’s flat and ugly.[/li][li]North Texas has a lot of dry areas, as Large Marge mentioned. I had to join some ridiculous private “drinking club” just so I could get a beer at a bowling alley the last time I was up near Plano. [/li][li]The predominant culture seems to be one of white-bread, Abercrombie and Fitch shoppin’, big hear wearin’ conservative Christian suburbia worship. It’s probably not quite that bad, but that’s how I have it categorized in my mind. I think religious fundamentalism has more of a stranglehold on N. Texas than around Houston, though I could be deluding myself. (I should point out that I view most suburbs as culturally barren wastelands with nothing to offer, thoughothers may feel different.)[/li][/ul]
Houston is funkier, dirtier, and more diverse than Dallas. It’s also much muggier and has worse mosquitos, and each get hot as the dickens in the summer. WeI’ll take H-town over Big D any day, but both are liveable cities. There are many worse places to be than Dallas.
The Cowboys do not play in Dallas and they don’t practice in Dallas. Both of those things happen in Irving.
neuroman did you have to pay to join your drinking club? If you did pay then you got screwed. There isn’t supposed to be any money changing hands to get one of those cards. However, I do agree that that whole setup is screwy.
Amen brother! Those are the things that bothered me the most about moving to the Dallas area after living in Houston for 27 years.
There’s a definite whitebread, upper middle class feel to the whole area- when you watch the news or read the paper, you’d think that black and hispanic people just don’t exist in the area. That’s definitely not the case in Houston.
Religious conservatism DEFINITELY has a much tighter grip on this area- have you seen the Baptodome… er… the Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano? Damn thing looks like a stadium, humongous parking lot and all. There are routinely weird fundamentalist billboards on the highways IN Dallas. There are two that I recall- one saying something incoheretn about men and monkeys and abortion, and one that just said “Use His name in vain and he’ll make the traffic worse.”. Yeah, religious conservatism is quite strong in DFW. I tell my family in Houston some of the tales of religious weird things like that, and they’re amazed and appalled- you just don’t see that kind of thing much down there.
Houston’s weather and mosquitoes are definite strikes in its favor, but I have always liked the “We work for a living” attitude that Houston has. It’s ok to be blue collar there, while in Dallas, the general attitude seems to be that if you’re not some kind of white collar guy making 100K, living in Plano or Southlake and driving a BMW or Mercedes, then you’re somehow not successful.
That, and the DFW’s “ethnic” communities are woefully small compared to Houston’s, with the exception of the Hispanic areas.
Yeah, I know they play in Irving and soon, Arlington (I think.) But they’re still called the Dallas Cowboys. No, I didn’t have to pay to join (no WAY in heck would I ever do that, I’d sooner walk out), but I still thought it was weird.
bump, be careful about making fun of the Dallas megachurches seeming like stadiums. It won’t be long before a REAL stadium in Houston becomes a megachurch, which is why I tempered my remarks. The poor ole’ Summit, former home of the Rockets, is being transformed by Lakewood Church as we speak.
According to The Flatlanders (Jimmie Dale Gilmour, Joe Ely, Butch Hancock)…
Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eye
A steel and concrete soul with a warm hearted love disguise
A rich man who tends to believe in his own lies
Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eye
Well I’m holed up near Mesquite for a couple weeks, I don’t know if that’s good or bad. It’s a strip mall paradise here too, with at least one of every food franchise you can imagine. I find the people are friendly, if they’re not in too much of a hurry. It’s kind of the land of one and a half children around here too, lots of young families.
I’m glad I gave up drinking a couple years ago, I didn’t even notice there weren’t any bars around. I think they are kind of starved for entertainment around this area, except for the rodeo, yeeee haaaa (whoops, did that sound come out of ME?).
The traffic is kind of bad here, but nothing like some other places in the US I have been. People don’t slam on their horn every time they don’t get their way.
All in all I find it fairly comfortable here, I don’t have to deal with the new money wannabes, so that’s cool. I just might set up shop here and call it a done deal.
Not a bad Criminal Justice program there. 