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Neither is really true. Dallas is a great bang for the buck, but money no object, Bay Area rules. To me it boils down to earning potential. Either can suck your soul if you approach it that way. Bay Area actually has a better likelihood of doing so, with long hours and such. My Pa was just short of a top earner in the Bay Area, and it gave him two strokes and a 1600sf house plus big taxes. He was at least smart enough to not try to ladder up houses.
DFW has quite a bit of culture, and good cuisine. You gotta drive a bit further for the cuisine, the diversity isn’t as embedded as it is in the Bay Area. Summers are difficult. But the cost of living is stupid cheap in comparison.
Neither is perfect.
Nobody's arguing "perfect."
I'm merely stating my position. I am a top earner in SF and moved here specifically for the career advancement SF offered, compared to Texas. (non-tech, btw) I moved from Houston, but lived in Dallas for awhile doing my same work.
The Dallas market for my profession was a bit better than Houston's, but still quite bad in comparison to places like NYC, LA, Chicago or SF.
My personal observation is that Dallas and SF are nearly POLAR OPPOSITES in every way--lifestyle, urban makeup, weather, culture, etc. If you're someone who likes and identifies with an urban, San Francisco (in the City, rather than the greater Bay Area) lifestyle you will most likely think Dallas' more suburban lifestyle sucks. And vice-versa, perhaps.
In all honesty with regard to Dallas, though, I even preferred Houston.
I'm merely stating my position. I am a top earner in SF and moved here specifically for the career advancement SF offered, compared to Texas. (non-tech, btw) I moved from Houston, but lived in Dallas for awhile doing my same work.
The Dallas market for my profession was a bit better than Houston's, but still quite bad in comparison to places like NYC, LA, Chicago or SF.
My personal observation is that Dallas and SF are nearly POLAR OPPOSITES in every way--lifestyle, urban makeup, weather, culture, etc. If you're someone who likes and identifies with an urban, San Francisco (in the City, rather than the greater Bay Area) lifestyle you will most likely think Dallas' more suburban lifestyle sucks. And vice-versa, perhaps.
In all honesty with regard to Dallas, though, I even preferred Houston.
Of course, I can’t comment on your career situation...
I take your point, between the two only the Bay Area has a true urban choice. If you’re more of a suburb dude like me, suddenly they don’t actually look all that terribly different. I happen to like both, it’s the COL that breaks it open for me and DFW. Money no object...I’d be back home in the Bay Area.
The SF Metro Area's economy is booming regardless and actually surpassed the DFW GDP in the last couple of years and the SF MSA has a faster growing GDP than the DFW MSA even though DFW has 3 million more people.
So Im happy for all the DFW growth but let's not get confused into thinking the Bay Area is suffering by comparison-it actually looks like the Bay Area is much better positioned economically.
The Bay Area is an absolute beast because of a single cog (tech). Based on that one cog it’s one of the most dynamic economies on earth and will be for foreseeable future, as long as it continues that hold on tech.
I guess I’m thinking about things broadly/holistically though (municipal budget health, average livability/COL for middle and lower class residents, homelessness, infrastructure, etc.). Not saying SF is or isn’t ahead in those areas-but what I’m saying is in spite of SF being an absolute beast on some levels-I feel like it’s worth at least discussing other aspects of the picture. For instance (and, not trying to pick on it at all, just holding trying to have high level discourse), but if Stockton for example is considered part of the Greater Bay Area.. it’s worth discussing some of the comparative problems there-I’m not sure Greater DFW has things like a Stockton, or the level of problem homelessness can be there (NYT wrote an illuminating article about this fact)
The Bay Area is an absolute beast because of a single cog (tech). Based on that one cog it’s one of the most dynamic economies on earth and will be for foreseeable future, as long as it continues that hold on tech.
I guess I’m thinking about things broadly/holistically though (municipal budget health, average livability/COL for middle and lower class residents, homelessness, infrastructure, etc.). Not saying SF is or isn’t ahead in those areas-but what I’m saying is in spite of SF being an absolute beast on some levels-I feel like it’s worth at least discussing other aspects of the picture. For instance (and, not trying to pick on it at all, just holding trying to have high level discourse), but if Stockton for example is considered part of the Greater Bay Area.. it’s worth discussing some of the comparative problems there-I’m not sure Greater DFW has things like a Stockton, or the level of problem homelessness can be there (NYT wrote an illuminating article about this fact)
The thing with tech is that it’s an odd sector that essentially breaks into other sectors. You’ve probably noticed that the tech sector has found its way into many other sectors and has done so to a massive extent. It’s also a funding model of sorts that acts pretty quickly.
Anyhow, the Bay Area also has a lot of other non-tech specific industries like finance, apparel, pharmaceuticals, and energy—take a look at the largest corporations in the Bay Area at some point and you’ll find that there are several very large corporations in industries that are not tech specific. Also, it hosts a pretty major port and the area brings in quite a bit of tourism. This is also one of the areas that the two are very comparable—both the Bay Area and the Metroplex are host to headquarters of many of the largest corporations in the US and it’s not solely dominated by any specific industry.
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