Is the TV show accurate??? (Houston, Dallas: real estate, city hall, buying)

[moonsparkle]

I mean about the whole masculine thing, there seems to be a sharp divide in Dallas.

Still this idea that all gay men are flamboyant and dress like it, straight men are typically your standard fraternity types - like there is no in between. A straight man should be into business-type wear only and not get too fancy. The midwest is like that too. Only place I've seen it acceptable for men to be really stylish, across-the-board, is LA. Even the suburbs there it's normal. And the "conservative" suburbs in California are not anything like the "conservative" TX suburbs.

I understand Dallas has several high-end shopping stores, also mainly geared towards women. Dallas seems liberal in terms of voting, but the conservative undercurrent still seems to dictate this "straitjacket" among men and the show proves that.

Another thing, When the suburbs are THAT conservative, the city center is not as liberal as locals want to think.

[TurtleCreek80]

Originally Posted by trancedout

Still this idea that all gay men are flamboyant and dress like it, straight men are typically your standard fraternity types - like there is no in between. A straight man should be into business-type wear only and not get too fancy. The midwest is like that too. Only place I've seen it acceptable for men to be really stylish, across-the-board, is LA. Even the suburbs there it's normal. And the "conservative" suburbs in California are not anything like the "conservative" TX suburbs.

There are plenty of well-dressed men here. Not "downtown NYC" street style well dressed.....that look isn't big here with girls, either!

Not all gay men dress well. I was at a restaurant and a big group of gay guys came in who looked & dressed like rugged lumberjacks/ construction workers.

We are a metro area with over 6M residents. It's not all one way or another despite your contined attempts to paint it that way.

Originally Posted by trancedout

I understand Dallas has several high-end shopping stores, also mainly geared towards women.

Not "several" - Hundreds! Neiman Marcus (3 locations), Barneys, Saks, Nordstrom (quite a few but 2 with large designer departments), Forty Five Ten, Stanley Korshak, Sebastian's, Carla Martinegro, Scoop, Intermix, Oscar, Chanel, Carolina, Hermes, several LV (one with apparel), Armani, Gucci, two Ralph Lauren stores, Louboutin, DVF, Jimmy Choo, Tory Burch, Versace, Cavalli, Stella, etc!!

And not all mainly geared towards women- Neiman's, Barneys, and Nordstrom have massive men's departments and loyal clientle (who aren't all gay). The Ralph Lauren stores do huge business in Dallas. Stanley Korshak has a whole men's store filled with Kiton, Hickey Freeman, Armani, etc. Forty Five Ten is perfect for the style conscious designer man. Hadleigh's Altier in Highland Park Village does beautiful custom men's clothing. There are quite a few men's custom clothing shops, too. Gucci, Ferragamo, Armani- all have decent men's selections in their boutiques and can order anything you see on the runway, in a magazine, online, etc. At the less expensive levels, there's menswear at Zara, H&M, Club Monaco, etc.

Originally Posted by trancedout

Another thing, When the suburbs are THAT conservative, the city center is not as liberal as locals want to think.

If you'd read this forum, you'd find that most of us city dwellers would NEVER be caught dead living in Collin County. And most of the CoCo people think Dallas is full of crime and that they're going to be shot if they cross city limits (even if they're buying $20,000 Kelly bags at Hermes.....you jus never know when the boogeyman is going to assault you!!!) It's the same in Houston. Many funky, artsy, international neighborhoods within 610 Loop that the people who live in Sugarland and Katy to "protect their safety" (or to prevent their kids from being in the same classroom as "brown" kids) don't even know exist. I work in Collin County. I'd guess that over 50% of my coworkers do not venture in to Dallas even once a year for dinner, theatre, a concert, an indie film, heck even the State Fair or the Arboretum's concert series. They stay busy with work and kid activities in Frisco and enjoy going to the steakhouse on the McKinney town square for "date nights".

[TurtleCreek80]

Anyway, if you're legitimately thinking of moving to Dallas and you're a hipster/ non-uber masculine/ Euro style or dowtown style dresser.....you'll find your niche. Maybe not in plain sight. Maybe in a neighborhood other than Uptown, but you'll find people like you and girls who want to date guys like you. You won't be lynched, made fun of, or harrassed at work or at the grocery store. We Texans have a bit of the Southern manners and are nice & welcoming to all kinds of people!

If you have no interest in Dallas whatsoever and only wish to paint it as too conservative, too masculine, too "anti-whatever it is you find acceptable" even though you have limited experience with our fair city....Save your breath, my friend!!

[moonsparkle]

I'll have to visit one more time.

[TrueDat]

Dallas is a hard city to get to know with only a couple of visits, especially if you only visit Uptown or the northern burbs.

Next time, get out of Uptown and spend some time in Oak Cliff and hang out in the small but growing Bishop Arts District. Eat at Spiral Diner (Spiral Diner :: We Love You), Oddfellows (http://oddfellowsdallas.com/). Or get some of the best tacos in the city at El Si Hay taqueria, but you'll have to eat standing up or in your car because there's really no place to sit. Then get something sweet at the artisan chocolatier Dude, Sweet. (Dude, Sweet Chocolate)

Then catch a band at the Kessler Theater (Welcome to the Kessler), which recently was written up in the NY Times as a symbol of how the reality of Dallas often conflicts with the everyone's stereotypes (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/op...=Dallas&st=cse). Or catch an indie/underground movie at the historic Texas Theater (where Lee Harvey Oswald was apprehended.) (Historic Texas Theatre in Oak Cliff | Dallas Independent Films, Movie Screenings and Showtimes).

During the day, go a little farther south and go for a bike ride or hike on the Big Cedar Wilderness Trails or Oak Cliff Nature Preserve and realize that Dallas may not be Boulder but it's not totally flat as a pancake either.

You could put together a similar itinerary for Deep Ellum, East Dallas or Oak Lawn. Are these areas of "alternative" culture as populous or dense as, say, Williamsburg or Silver Lake or the entire city of Portland? Not by a long shot but it's here, and it's not quite as pretentious either. You can spend much of your life in Dallas and only rarely have to deal with the popped Polo collar in the local bar or the leased Audi TT mowing you down while trying to cross McKinney Avenue.

Here are other sites about Oak Cliff:

Go Oak Cliff

Bishop Arts District - Oak Cliff - Dallas, TX

[moonsparkle]

Originally Posted by TurtleCreek80

If you'd read this forum, you'd find that most of us city dwellers would NEVER be caught dead living in Collin County. And most of the CoCo people think Dallas is full of crime and that they're going to be shot if they cross city limits (even if they're buying $20,000 Kelly bags at Hermes.....you jus never know when the boogeyman is going to assault you!!!) It's the same in Houston. Many funky, artsy, international neighborhoods within 610 Loop that the people who live in Sugarland and Katy to "protect their safety" (or to prevent their kids from being in the same classroom as "brown" kids) don't even know exist. I work in Collin County. I'd guess that over 50% of my coworkers do not venture in to Dallas even once a year for dinner, theatre, a concert, an indie film, heck even the State Fair or the Arboretum's concert series. They stay busy with work and kid activities in Frisco and enjoy going to the steakhouse on the McKinney town square for "date nights".

Again, that "sharp divide". You just don't find that in other places that aren't known as conservative. Like everything is somewhat intentionally feigned in the city trying to prove some liberal/big city status, partially just to upset people in the suburbs, lol.

I've read some of these Dallas/Houston topics, and it's like each city wants more crime to prove to the other city "We're more dangerous than you!", after all, crime is a big city trait.

[TurtleCreek80]

Originally Posted by trancedout

Again, that "sharp divide". You just don't find that in other places that aren't known as conservative. Like everything is somewhat intentionally feigned in the city trying to prove some liberal/big city status, partially just to upset people in the suburbs, lol.

I've read some of these Dallas/Houston topics, and it's like each city wants more crime to prove to the other city "We're more dangerous than you!", after all, crime is a big city trait.

If that's what you got out of reading the forums, you completely missed the point. Dallas IS safe- at least the neighborhoods where it takes $200k+ to buy a home are. The suburb people just can't get that fact through their brains....

As for the suburbs being conservative, the majority of it's population didn't move "to the burbs" from Dallas, they moved from out of city/state as corporate relos or because of the lower cost of living/bigger houses/better schools than wherever they lived before. The people who grew up in Dallas and are now raising families here live in the city for the most part- they didn't make the "great migration" to the suburbs. On the flip side, my college friends who grew up in Plano or McKinney live there now (or another Collin Co suburb); they never entertained the idea of raising a family in Dallas.

It's exhausting trying to show you that there ARE liberal neighborhoods/groups of people in Dallas when all you've seen is Uptown. Come again- and hang out in East Dallas, North Oak Cliff, Deep Ellum & Exposition Park, the Cedars, etc. These aren't tiny "pockets" of Dallas; they're huge swaths of East/South/Southwest Dallas. I think the hundreds of thousands of people who live in these areas would be fairly offended to find out some sh$t from LA thinks their very way of life in this city is "intentionally feigned" to "upset" people living in Plano. Like they give a flip about Plano.

[moonsparkle]

Do any of these liberal neighborhoods, or "huge swaths" overlap the "dry" areas of Dallas?

Hard to believe anywhere that still has prohibition laws in place is NOT ultra-conservative.

From this map, a lot of it seems dry. Almost the same way it was back in 1920.

[TrueDat]

Not sure what map you're looking at. But there are no dry areas of Dallas anymore. All of that was thrown out with the 2010 election when voters, by a huge majority, voted to do away with the anachronism.

http://www.nbcdfw.com/the-scene/food...111303344.html

[TurtleCreek80]

Originally Posted by trancedout

do any of these liberal neighborhoods, or "huge swaths" overlap the "dry" areas of dallas?

Hard to believe anywhere that still has prohibition laws in place is not ultra-conservative.

From this map, a lot of it seems dry. Almost the same way it was back in 1920.

Your map is out-of-date. All of Dallas is "wet", passed by 70% in an election last year. But even before the vote, every neighborhood I mentioned except north oak cliff was already "wet" and had been for decades.