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So I am 21 years old and graduating with my A+ Certificate in December along with 2 other certificates. I plan to work in the IT field and go back to school for my computer science degree once I move. I am stuck between moving to Dallas Texas and Tampa Florida. I'm looking for info about each city..including:
Any other info: I lived in Tampa for 2 years after college. Couldn't find a job as the job market is very competitive in Florida. Jobs are more plentiful in Texas.
I have more experience with Dallas than with Tampa, but I have some with both and I have family that has lived in both.
Apartment prices: Tampa
City life: Dallas
Restaurants: Dallas
Activities: Dallas
Amusement Parks: Tampa has Busch Gardens and Orlando not far away, but everything in central Florida is wildly expensive. Dallas has Six Flags Over Texas, which is cheaper and more well-rounded than anything in Florida. I will give this one to Dallas.
Work: probably Dallas
People: both fine
Weather: Dallas
Traffic: Tampa probably, but I can't imagine rush hour over those bridges is any fun at all.
Crime: Tampa
Dallas is enormous so it's no surprise there's more going on there. Tampa is pretty and the beaches are beautiful, but it doesn't have as much going for it as a cosmopolitan city.
Tampa has the better weather--summers, temperature-wise, aren't as hot, and you get much warmer weather the rest of the year, but still just enough crisp winter days if you want that holiday feel. Plus, you're close to this:
There are parts of Dallas that really feel like a big city. And it is a much larger metro so you'd easily find more opportunities.
But Tampa is pretty great too and coming from Rochester you might find it a good fit. Plenty going on and perhaps not too overwhelming. With the amazing waterfronts all around it can be very nice and relaxing too.
So I am 21 years old and graduating with my A+ Certificate in December along with 2 other certificates. I plan to work in the IT field and go back to school for my computer science degree once I move. I am stuck between moving to Dallas Texas and Tampa Florida. I'm looking for info about each city..including:
Apartment prices: Probably Tampa. Dallas has a much larger corporate presence, so there are more people employed in the professional services sector in Dallas compared to Tampa, which has a service-oriented, hospitality-driven economy, consistent with most of Florida. Unfortunately, wages and salaries in the hospitality industry are abysmal, and non-wage benefits along with upward economic mobility are often non-existent. However, when people are more gainfully employed, such as in Dallas, the SOL is usually higher, which, in turn, raises the COL.
City life: Definitely Dallas. Overall, Dallas is a more urban city with a greater number of walkable residential neighborhoods than Tampa, not to mention that Dallas is a much larger city than Tampa in terms of population as well. Young professionals in Tampa are more likely to live in "lifestyle centers" (e.g., Channelside)--where shopping, dining, etc. all take place in one complex--than people in Dallas because Tampa is more suburban in nature. An equivalent in DFW would be the Las Colinas development.
Restaurants: Probably Dallas. Dallas is home to a more diverse populace than Tampa, so it's home to a wider array of cuisines than Tampa. Cuban and Italian food are probably better overall in Tampa, however, due to a larger presence of Cuban-Americans from Cuba and South Florida and Italian-Americans from the Northeast and Great Lakes states.
Activities: Tampa, for sure, especially if nature and water-related recreational activities are your thing. Dallas is naturally and topographically one of the ugliest cities in the entire country, so there's not much in the way of outdoor recreational activities in DFW. Not many fun or interesting places within reasonable driving distance, either. Locals in the Dallas area are kinda comical, too, as they often attest to the fact that there's not much else to do in the area other than shopping and dining. If guns are your thing, however, you could always go shooting or hunting, I suppose. Tampa is one of the biggest tourist destinations in the US due to the beaches/Gulf and theme parks, so there's an endless array of things to do. With Orlando and many other resort cities/tourist destinations up--or down--the road, you'll never be at a loss for things to do on the weekends living in Tampa Bay.
Amusement Parks: Definitely Tampa. Tampa alone is home to Busch Gardens: Tampa and Adventure Island, but the theme park center of the universe, Orlando, is only 45-55 min. away, depending on traffic. The Dallas area, while home to Six Flags Over Texas and a few smaller amusement parks, isn't really known for its amusement parks, unlike the Central Florida area.
Work: Dallas has a much stronger, more diversified economy than Tampa, which, again, has a service-oriented economy. Dallas is home to a larger corporate presence than Tampa, so there are more well-paying positions in the professional service sector in Dallas compared to Tampa as well as a more competitive ethos and professional vibe in general. The IT industry in particular is more robust in Dallas compared to Tampa, so wages/salaries and non-salary benefits in that industry are far more competitive in Dallas. Tampa is probably only a better place to live if you work in hospitality or maybe health care. However, salaries across the board are more proportional to the COL in Dallas vs. Tampa.
People: Generally speaking, people in Dallas are friendlier, more gregarious, and more neighborly than people in Tampa, but they're also a whole lot more religious and socially conservative. People are better educated and more corporate-minded in Dallas. Also, there are also a lot more native Texans in Dallas vs. native Floridians in Tampa, so it might be a little harder to break into social circles in Dallas vs. Tampa, but the good thing is that Dallas is a lot less transient than Tampa, so while it might be harder to make friends in Dallas initially, it'll be easier to keep those friends because chances are good they're not going to up and leave after a few years--big issue in Florida.
Weather: Tampa, hands down--warmer winters, cooler summers, more sunshine, sea-breezes and afternoon rainstorms that moderate diurnal heating in the summertime. Compared to Tampa, Dallas is frigid cold in the wintertime. Ice storms are a regular winter occurrence in Dallas. Snowstorms, although less common than ice storms, can happen in Dallas, too. More significantly, Dallas is a lot windier with a much greater potential for violent tornadoes than the Tampa Bay area. Because Dallas lies at the juxtaposition of plains to the north, deserts to the west, forests to the east, and swampland to the south, it has to be one of the worst cities in the entire country for allergy sufferers. And don't forget those hailstorms, either--wow, can they wreck havoc! Overall, Dallas' weather truly leaves something to be desired.
Traffic: The Tampa Bay area has a lot less traffic than DFW, but that's because it's a smaller metro area. However, DFW's infrastructure network is much more advanced than that of Tampa's, but that's because DFW invests more money in its infrastructure to both attract and retain industry as well as being one of the most important logistics centers in the US.
Crime: For a city its size, Tampa sure packs a mean punch with regard to crime. Florida in general has a lot more bizarre crimes and goings-on than Texas, mostly because Florida overwhelmingly attracts more shady deviants and transients from the world over than just about any other state in the US. This isn't anything new, either. Crime-ridden areas are more centralized in the DFW area, too, wheres pockets of crime are more evenly distributed throughout the metro area in Tampa Bay. Consistent with most of Florida, the nicer, more upscale areas of Tampa are never that far away from more dangerous areas.
Any other info: I've lived in both Florida (Boca Raton) and Texas (Plano), and I if I had to choose between Dallas or Tampa at this stage in my life (i.e., late 30's), I'd pick Florida, for sure. For me personally, Dallas is just too Southern. Even though people say Dallas is Texan, through and through, and where a bunch of Californians/Upper Midwesterners go for bigger/newer/cheaper housing and/or warmer weather, I disagree. Dallas, especially in the outlying areas of the metro area, is a whole lot more Southern than it is purported to be. There's still lots and lots of hard-line Evangelicals and social conservatives, although with somewhat of a Western/cowboy twist. People in Dallas seem less receiving of "Yankees" and "Lefties," too--just a more difficult place to adjust to and navigate socially, especially for people from the North and West Coast, when compared to Tampa. YMMV.
Any info is good info!
My responses in bold.
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