Hate NYC & am moving to DFW. Neighborhood(s) to consider?? (Dallas: for sale, apartment complex)

[TurtleCreek80]

Originally Posted by sywi

No, I only saw them after posting, making me feel like a dufus. I wasn't expecting such a swift response rate. (I guess it's daytime now, and people post more than overnight, duh. --We journalists are kind of nocturnal and forget how normal people's circadian cycles go.)

Thanks for the suggestions, both. I have copied and pasted them into a document so I can save and print them for close study, map in hand.

(It isn't spamming if I repost the same question in the Dallas and Ft. Worth sections too?)

No, not at all. Dallas and FW are two completely different cities. Most people who live in one only visit the other 1-2 times a year MAX, so they might not know the ins & outs of all the neigbhorhoods meeting your criteria.

And very few of us post/read the Texas board at all - I only check it every week or so but am on the Dallas board every day. I maybe check the FW board every month-ish.

[sywi]

I will check the Dallas and Ft. Worth boards as suggested. (Tho' anyone who wants to post here, I'll be checking back here too.)

And thanks for the two suggestions -- they do sound like the sort of thing I am looking for. Thanks much.

(I've never moved blind across country before and had to pick a neighborhood in a totally strange city. I've moved across country but only for school, in which case you know where you have to live: near the school. I'm probably making a bigger deal out of it than it is; anticipatory anxiety is always worse than the thing itself.)

At least I know there will be shooting ranges within commuting distance. I may know next to nothing about Texas, aside from that I liked it, but I did discover that I'm supposedly a weirdly talented natural shot. Shooting a handgun even on a range is not something one can ever do in NYC.

[artsyguy]

In Dallas and Houston people make eye contact and are usually polite.

You might find some polite and friendly areas in El Paso and Corpus Christie. But as of now Dallas and Houston are the best in Texas.

The other areas of Texas are very backwoods rube bastions IMHO.

[pmsing]

Honestly I think you might really like Austin...it is more of a university / hippy friendly / music walking kind of town. I've lived in DFW area and Austin and there is a difference. Fort Worth is more laid back than dallas, but I still like Austin best. Certainly spend some time in both before you decide. There are a lot of sublets you can get for a couple months in either place. Good luck

[sywi]

Well, being shy it takes me a while to make friends, so for my social loving-up needs I kinda want to stick close initially to friends I don't have to hunt down and make. The only friends I have in Texas are in Fort Worth. Once I have slooowly put together my own support network, I'll be more confident and freer to branch out. (I'm single and don't have much in the way of blood family -- parents have passed, I have a half-brother, but he's absorbed by his wife and children. And my friends from college and grad school and even work have scattered to every corner of the country, now that NYC is still the center of the magazine industry, but the industry itself is dying faster than an armadillo run over by a semi. So avoiding becoming the local cat lady talking to the pigeons for a change of company is something I need to take care to avoid.)

Hence the focus on DFW.

BTW, I ran across a cool website that lists the "walk score" of every neighborhood in the U.S. (A walk score is pretty much what it sounds like -- how a given address rates in terms of how many and what kind of amenities are within easy walking distance and can be walked to (that is, aren't cut off by highways/cul-de-sacs/no sidewalks). The amenities are actually listed, broken out into categories ranging from stores to schools to coffee hangouts to bookstores/libraries to ATMs. You can look at a list of all 50 states, pick one, and see all the major communities of each listed with their walk scores listed next to them. Clickable down to a remarkable level of detail -- you can actually input a street address and see its walk score, how it compares to the rest of the community and the state, and exactly what the local bookstores/libraries are and how far in miles. And also find out your approx. commute time by foot, bike, car, and public transportation to any other given address.
The commute feature would help anyone looking for housing, and the walk score is just what I was looking for (and maybe others coming from less car-dependent areas who have the same hankering for that mosey on foot in the neighborhood feel.)

http://www.walkscore.com

[sywi]

So, just an update -- I decide to stick to Ft. Worth, because it seems a better value for the same $ (I think I mentioned journalists are poor ), and it's closer to my friends.

I found a place I am very happy with, and I had my Ft. Worth friends check it out, and they say it seems like my type o' place. It's an apartment compex at 5500 So. Hulen. Walk Score of 71 (Saginaw by contrast has a WS of 6); used bookstore across the street; also walkable to groceries, the Movie Tavern (sounds cool!), B & N; etc. The apartment complex has some other writers and also TCU professors in residence and, while older than many, is supposedly very well run. Affordable and not family-oriented. (Not that I mind families, of course, but they're not generally buddy-material in the same way adult singles are; they're mostly slightly-too-busy folk, w/ all the company they need already.)

So I am happy and looking forward to moving to your great state. I promise not to bring any obnoxious Yankee attitudes w/ me. (Midwesterners are not really Yankees in the same sense Northeasterners are -- they're friendly, down to earth, family-oriented, and that kind of thing. And where I spent much of my childhood, we ate chicken-fried steak and hushpuppies and called the glass apertures in buildings 'winder-lights.' And fired off the shotgun up into the air on New Year's Eve. So I should not be too alien a presence.)

[txtoal]

Originally Posted by sywi

So, just an update -- I decide to stick to Ft. Worth, because it seems a better value for the same $ (I think I mentioned journalists are poor ), and it's closer to my friends.

I found a place I am very happy with, and I had my Ft. Worth friends check it out, and they say it seems like my type o' place. It's an apartment compex at 5500 So. Hulen. Walk Score of 71 (Saginaw by contrast has a WS of 6); used bookstore across the street; also walkable to groceries, the Movie Tavern (sounds cool!), B & N; etc. The apartment complex has some other writers and also TCU professors in residence and, while older than many, is supposedly very well run. Affordable and not family-oriented. (Not that I mind families, of course, but they're not generally buddy-material in the same way adult singles are; they're mostly slightly-too-busy folk, w/ all the company they need already.)

So I am happy and looking forward to moving to your great state. I promise not to bring any obnoxious Yankee attitudes w/ me. (Midwesterners are not really Yankees in the same sense Northeasterners are -- they're friendly, down to earth, family-oriented, and that kind of thing. And where I spent much of my childhood, we ate chicken-fried steak and hushpuppies and called the glass apertures in buildings 'winder-lights.' And fired off the shotgun up into the air on New Year's Eve. So I should not be too alien a presence.)

Congrats! Welcome to FW. If you have any questions, by all means, post on the FW board. If you have any questions about FW, I would be more than happy to help if I can.

[sywi]

Thank you!

[artsyguy]

No I disagree. I lived in Austin for a single year. There really isn't anything there besides longhorn football games, tons of traffic, pollution, cookie cutter bars and pubs, more rubes than hippies, and a few carnival festivals. Nothing special. Avoid it like the plague.

Originally Posted by pmsing

Honestly I think you might really like Austin...it is more of a university / hippy friendly / music walking kind of town. I've lived in DFW area and Austin and there is a difference. Fort Worth is more laid back than dallas, but I still like Austin best. Certainly spend some time in both before you decide. There are a lot of sublets you can get for a couple months in either place. Good luck

[BoxCar Willie]

Originally Posted by sywi

I promise not to bring any obnoxious Yankee attitudes w/ me. (Midwesterners are not really Yankees in the same sense Northeasterners are -- they're friendly, down to earth, family-oriented, and that kind of thing. )

Easy there. New Yuckeers AINT like all us nor easters [I'm from MAINE originally] There's nor easters and then you got them New Yuckers!! [TOTALLY different critter all together]