Multicultural Family Seeking Info About Plano

[MckinneyOwnr]

Originally Posted by iluvmylife

I would love to know what are your favorite things about Plano and your least favorite things about Plano? How are the schools in your opinion? How long is the average commute to downtown Dallas?

I lived in Plano for over 20 years. It used to be a lot smaller.

When we moved there, there were 100k residents. Now, it's close to 300k. So as you can imagine, traffic has gotten a lot worse, even though every major road is now three lanes.

Throughout the years though, Plano has done a great job of expanding their infrastructure, roads, parks, etc, while actively promoting Plano as a great place for corporations to set up shop. It's worked.

The school district is top notch and competitive. You can be certain that your children would receive a good education no matter which schools in PISD they attend, and they also have strong programs for gifted or developmentally challenged kids.

As far as retail and restaurants go, Plano has almost everything, and what they don't have, it's not too far from Dallas to get it.

Violent crime is basically non existent. There are some thefts here and there, but overall, Plano is incredibly safe considering its size.

So, you can see there are lots of reasons to like Plano. A couple things I don't like are the increased traffic (it doesn't seem to matter when you drive through Plano, it always seems like rush hour traffic to me) and there is definitely a "have" vs "have not" dimension going on.

For long time Plano residents, there is a stigma against living East of 75. That was always the "bad" part of town, with bad meaning poor. Now though, it's gotten worse, with Preston or Coit being the dividing line between West and Central Plano. If you have children, they will be exposed to incredible differences in wealth going through PISD. My first car was a BMW 528e... It was used with 90k miles on it. I worked for a year and a half to save up $3500 for it, my parents matched me, so $7k total spent. I obviously knew how much it cost since I paid for it. But there were many kids who had been given cars on the day they turned 16 (Mustangs, Camaros, etc) that suddenly thought I and my parents were rich, even though their cars cost 3-4 times what mine did. They just had no clue what things cost. That was over 20 years ago, and as Plano has become more and more affluent, it's only gotten worse.

Maybe that wouldn't be a big deal to you, but it's something to think about. I don't want my kids having to keep up with the Joneses in terms of wealth, they'll have plenty of that to contend with when they are adults themselves.

EDIT: Forgot to add about the commute to downtown... It's not fun. I used to make that trek and it took about 45-50 min in the morning, but that was years ago.

[ParkerPal]

I have some AA and Hispanic friends in McKinney and they love it out there.

[dhakaia]

Just by standing in our driveway, I see neighbors that are Caucasian, African American, Korean, Indian, Middle-Eastern, Chinese, Latino... perhaps even more. We are minorities ourselves, and no one gives us a second look... which is a great thing!

For ethnic diversity in the suburbs... I don't think you can do better than Plano. Just be sure to thoroughly check-out (i.e. drive, walk.. weekdays, weekends etc.) the area you are considering.

[Cowboys fan in Houston]

Originally Posted by dhakaia

For ethnic diversity in the suburbs... I don't think you can do better than Plano. Just be sure to thoroughly check-out (i.e. drive, walk.. weekdays, weekends etc.) the area you are considering.

I miss that.

I live in Houston now which is overall more diverse than Dallas, but the neighborhood I live in Houston is nowhere near as diverse as the neighborhood I lived in Plano.

[sgoofi]

I would like to offer up my 2 cents for something other than Plano (while I LOVE this forum, it's very Plano-centric). I live in N. Garland and would definitely say that you will get everything you're looking for in Garland or Richardson. If you were to go for Garland, I would recommend staying north of Buckingham. South of there, while not bad, is a little more run down.

One of the things that my husband still notes is the amount of interracial couples he sees all the time and we love it. We're in the middle of looking for houses now and because my husband loves N. Garland so much, we've restricted our search to just 2 zip codes. Garland ISD has choice of school, so if you get your kids registered in time, they can go to any school in the district. While the schools aren't Plano schools, your kids will still get a very decent education as Garland as several magnet schools and the IB program.

If you're looking for a smaller town feel, you may want to take a look at Sachse as well. It's right next to Garland and depending on what part of Sachse, you'll be zoned to Garland or Wylie schools.

FWIW, McKinney, Frisco, Plano all are great places with some diversity and great schools. However, I would definitely say if diversity is your #1 priority, Garland, Richardson, or Sachse is where it's at.

[iluvmylife]

Thank you everyone for input! Much appreciated!