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Well if you want to get technical, there is nothing really wrong with anywhere. Whats wrong with Canada, California, NYC, Boston, Omaha, etc. There is nothing wrong per say with any of them, we can only compare them to other places on a scale of which is better or worse overall or in select categories. And some of those are either backed by fact or are strictly opinion based. Essentially you asked an unanswerable question.
LOL.. I can give you a long list of things that is wrong with California... but I think you're right.
What I may find wrong with a place someone may find a positive.. it's subjective.
I like cookie cutter suburbia because I've lived the inner city life for way to long while others dislike it. hmmmm....
LOL.. I can give you a long list of things that is wrong with California... but I think you're right.
What I may find wrong with a place someone may find a positive.. it's subjective.
I like cookie cutter suburbia because I've lived the inner city life for way to long while others dislike it. hmmmm....
If you like suburbia anything north of Beltline Rd. and definitely the George Bush Turnpike is all suburbia. Splitting that area up is turning to things like SAT scores and median incomes of each subdivision. Day to day life is very similar. Many Targets, malls, tons of grocery options, chain Restraunts, mom and pops mixed in, etc.
Well if you want to get technical, there is nothing really wrong with anywhere. Whats wrong with Canada, California, NYC, Boston, Omaha, etc. There is nothing wrong per say with any of them, we can only compare them to other places on a scale of which is better or worse overall or in select categories. And some of those are either backed by fact or are strictly opinion based. Essentially you asked an unanswerable question.
Since you compared it to Plano, it would be the closest city for us to compare it to.
-Plano is more established
-Frisco has more new homes
-Plano has better schools
-Frisco has a professional soccer team
-Plano is closer to Dallas
-Frisco gets more home for less money
There are pluses and minuses to both cities. Technically there is nothing WRONG with Frisco, it just is not RIGHT for certain people.
Also at bencronin.. I guess I should have added that I'm not looking for established older neighborhoods. We are in our mid-late 20s.In 20 yrs we will be empty nesters in our mid 40s (and possibly retired). In 20 years a 2014 house will be 20yrs old... In 20yrs a house built in 2000 will be 34 yrs old and we will definitely want to move out instead of updating.
That is why I fell in love with Avignon... A new house in Plano with enough space for a growing family.
LOL.. I can give you a long list of things that is wrong with California... but I think you're right.
What I may find wrong with a place someone may find a positive.. it's subjective.
I like cookie cutter suburbia because I've lived the inner city life for way to long while others dislike it. hmmmm....
EXACTLY!
And just like Frenzer(spelling*) was saying Frisco is perfect for them and their family. It may be perfect for yours as well. I grew up in "Dallas" so suburbia is not appealing to me. I gave it an honest run living in Frisco and Plano both for short periods, but I felt so disconnected. I feel more alive in the city and closer to the things I know. If I were to move to the bay area(which we almost did), I would have lived in a suburb such as Hillsborough because I wouldn't want to be in the crazy city 100% of the time either.
I grew up in Dallas. Not Plano, not Richardson, not Carrollton, etc. Dallas Dallas. Inside 635. Growing up in Dallas in the 1980s, there was a definite "us" and "them" mindset. People who grew up in Dallas proper in that era can back me up on that. We lived our lives with our backs turned to 635. If it was north of the loop, it was "up there" or "out there" and we seldom went that far north. I can count on one hand the number of times I visited Plano when I was growing up. People I grew up with think I'm in Siberia or that I'm a "sellout" because I live in Richardson.
I'm single and childless, so I'm not looking for the same things as some other people. I am less concerned with school quality (though my local schools in Richardson are excellent). I'm not super-paranoid about crime (though our crime is very low in Richardson) and big box stores hold little appeal for me. Super Target is enough. I rarely go to big box stores and when I do, I don't really care about driving to Dallas or Plano to do it.
I hate long commutes. Hate them. I don't see the point of working for my house, my car, and my commute when I can cut all those expenses down by living closer to the action. In my line of work, Richardson is a better choice if you want to have a better commute to more points in DFW.
Not having children, I'm not concerned about areas being "family-friendly" or having lots of kids around for my hypothetical children to play with. In fact, having lots of kids around is irritating to me.
Having said that, Frisco to me looks like a boring suburban sprawl with lots of chain stores and chain restaurants that you can find anywhere. To me, it has no character of its own; it's just an extension of what came before it except it's newer and the parking lots are in better condition. The schools are mediocre when you account for the average income and educational attainment of Frisco's residents. You'd expect the test scores to be higher than they are.
Also, Frisco is almost like a prison. You have to pay to get into it by driving on tollroads, and you have to pay to get out of it. It's a massive extra added expense that a lot of people don't think about until they see the constant charges from NTTA on their credit cards for their tolltags, or worse, the pink "second notice" letters from NTTA demanding payment plus late fees when you never got a bill to begin with. It's a hassle.
Plus, Frisco is not well-located for area-wide commuting. You're married to Collin and parts of Denton counties and that's about it. If you get a job downtown or Irving, have fun with that commute. Nowhere in Dallas is perfect from a commuting standpoint, but Richardson is better than Frisco for that. Much better. Plus, 75 is free (for now).
Plenty of people live in Frisco and plenty of them just loooooooooove it. That's great. I wish them happiness. That doesn't mean Frisco is "the best". And it's not for everyone. I have been there and at this stage of life, I would never live there.
That's my $0.02, since you asked. I don't hate Frisco. I don't love it either. I usually don't even think about it.
I'm a bit confused about this thread. Are we comparing urban vs suburban or Frisco vs Plano? If lot size, low density living and new construction are OP's main requirements then you should look at Prosper, Parker, Lucas, Westlake etc.
I'm a bit confused about this thread. Are we comparing urban vs suburban or Frisco vs Plano? If lot size, low density living and new construction are OP's main requirements then you should look at Prosper, Parker, Lucas, Westlake etc.
Prosper, for example, is 85% White...
Diversity and safety are #1 then it's lot size, house etc.
Someone mentioned Coppell and I plan on researching that city.
This thread basically asked what's wrong with Frisco.
If I'm searching for good schools, diversity, safety, etc.. isn't Frisco a good city to add to my search?
So far I'm only looking in Plano but I did see some nice homes in Frisco.
I have noticed before, and after searching the forum directly for Frisco, posters tend to talk down on Frisco which is why I asked: Is Frisco just as good if not better than Plano?
I get that.. I'm not "set of Frisco".
I've actually been searching and is still searching in Plano.. I've said it twice that I was "set" on Avignon.
However, I didn't plan on Avignon selling out so quickly nor did I plan on my Husband taking so long to build his clientele to full status in DFW.
He will be keeping half of his clients from the Bay. The way it is looking we will be moving in around the summer months if everything goes right.
When I talked to a seller from Avignon I was told that the lots were practically gone which is why I extended my search.
I just wanted a real answer as to "Why does this board hate Frisco?" Just the mere mention of someone moving there and everyone discredits why it's a good place to live.
I gave examples of bay area neighborhoods as to why it entices me to see a new home.
Either way, I planned on renting until my house was built anyway, so I would be renting for awhile to figure it out for myself.
No one has said so far WHY Frisco is such a hated place on this forum.
Oh for pete's sake, Frisco is NOT "HATED", and there have been NUMEROUS posts IN THIS THREAD stating some items where Frisco "falls short" relative to some other areas. Now, maybe those items aren't a big deal, or Frisco is "close enough" on those items that it's worthwhile to you, or whatever.
Why is Avignon sold out? I assume because it's in West Plano, and West Plano is highly desireable. It's an affluent area with a substantial amount of ethnic diversity and schools that are among the very best in DFW. As noted upthread, among non-magnet publics on Highland Park HS (extremely expensive area with very little ethnic diversity) and Carroll Senior HS (very affluent and rather expensive area with limited ethnic diversity) put up SAT numbers better than Plano West HS.
Frisco's schools are "very good", but they are not excellent. Frisco is further from downtown Dallas than Plano (or many other suburbs). When it comes to "large lots", those are hard to find in most parts of DFW but are generally even harder to find in Frisco, however at 800K+ I'm assuming you can find some there somewhere. There are MANY areas around DFW where one can find all of your bullet points - heck, "access to shopping" is pretty much a given ANYWHERE in DFW, they have more malls per capita than any other metro area in the US, and at your price point "low crime" had better be a given. If you're looking for "great schools" and "large lots", then Frisco is not a top choice compared to other areas.
The frustration, as I point out, is that MANY people come to this board and speak of Frisco as if it's All That, when in reality it's a perfectly nice burb but nothing spectacular compared to, say, Flower Mound. Heck, I'd likely take Flower Mound over Frisco in a heartbeat (although the commute to downtown DFW is probably more difficult from many parts of FM). But we don't get people coming to the board regularly spouting the spectacularness of Flower Mound. Or, as I noted, Keller, a perfectly fine suburb and kind of comparable to Frisco, at least in the bits feeding to Keller HS.
Frisco's a perfectly nice 'burb, and it's been growing in leaps and bounds the last 25 years as the Collin County Norther Frontier keeps pushing along. I suspect Prosper is the "next Frisco", as Frisco was sort of the "next Plano". And sure, there are people who just dislike the vastness of Collin County suburbia, (or any of that sort of "Generica"), and Frisco's just the largest and most obvious manifestation of it (was 6,000 in 1990 and ~120,000 now).
But short answer - Frisco's fine, but there are other suburbs that most people would consider better choices given your price point and wish list.
There is nothing wrong with Frisco. The schools rank lower than Plano but they are still great schools.
Coming from the locals (and I'm paraphrasing based on the responses), Frisco is a great place to live but the schools, even though great, aren't Plano's and it isn't as close to Dallas.
All in all... People just dislike Frisco.. just to dislike Frisco.
PEACE!
I don't know why or who dislikes frisco. Plano schools are better than frisco on test scores but frisco schools are not shabby. Here is a list where you will see all the schools by average SAT (I'd prefer median but nobody reports it). DFW High Schools ranked by SAT 2012-2013
2 frisco high schools (one of them zoned to us) in the top 15 public schools in DFW area. 4 of them are in top 30. That does not make frisco a city with bad schools. Now this is of this year and these are improving slowly every year. Every one in our highly educated neighborhood (including those who came from east / west coast) have very smart kids in their diapers. I am not betting that frisco high school performance will rival the well-established plano / south lake or coppell soon and who knows... That was not the factor we had in mind. The demographics of this place has changed dramatically in the last 5 years. If you tear down the demographics of the high SAT/ NMSF achievers in Plano, you will see a theme. That theme was missing in frisco until now but it is changing rapidly.
I have noticed before, and after searching the forum directly for Frisco, posters tend to talk down on Frisco which is why I asked: Is Frisco just as good if not better than Plano?
You may have noticed that because some of our resident cheerleaders for Frisco make some claims about how their city is "better" than the surrounding suburbs... and it's never backed up by fact.
The fact is, Plano has a better school district. That is not debatable though some would like to. Plano has more retail (though Frisco is no slouch here either.) Plano is more established (no brainer here, it's been around longer.) Plano is better for a Dallas commute (again, no brainer, it's closer, no matter how you slice it.) Plano has larger lots than Frisco (by and large, this is true, because while most of Plano was developed in the 70's through 90's, the average lot size was about .25 acre. Now, builders have pared that down to .15 to .20 of an acre for most developments.) The end result of this is that when you are driving through Frisco neighborhoods, the houses are EXTREMELY close together most of the time. That was a real big reason why we didn't buy there.
Frisco has a lot going for it, there's no doubt about that. But it simply comes up short in a variety of ways when compared to other suburbs, and when the only thing you can say about your town unequivocally is that the houses are newer and shinier... Well, that's just not enough for most people.
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hmmmm....
