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Go to NJ. Simply put, the New York Metro area provides the most opportunities for advancement and career development in the US and possible the world. Living in the NY metro gives you access to best and brightest in numerous fields from banking to marketing to fashion. This presents children that grow up here with great opportunities. Yes the taxes are high and weather can be bad, but it is worth it especially for ambitious people. I'm sure Dallas is fine and has a lot to offer, but New York is New York.
That's quite the NYC attitude! There are quality of life issues quite apart from the idealised view that some New Yorkers and New York suburbanites have of themselves and their rather small part of the USA. It's entirely possible that the OP and her family would actually enjoy life more in Dallas than in North Jersey. That said, my preference would be NJ.
Absolutely. I've no desire to dis NY. One of the reasons we moved here was that we are an hour and a half by train from NYC. Indeed, before we moved to London we thought we were going to move to NYC, but after London we had no desire to live in a shoe box anymore and didn't want to be in the outer boroughs. It really does depend on priorities. The OP has a similar thread - oddly - on the Fort Worth forum (possibly symptomatic of the tendency of people outside the region not to understand the difference between Dallas and Fort Worth; Irving is in Dallas County and definitely a Dallas suburb, whilst Fort Worth is Tarrant County and has a different set of burbs). It would be easier to offer suggestions if the OP provided a bit more info regarding family composition, goals and priorities.
Absolutely. I've no desire to dis NY. One of the reasons we moved here was that we are an hour and a half by train from NYC. Indeed, before we moved to London we thought we were going to move to NYC, but after London we had no desire to live in a shoe box anymore and didn't want to be in the outer boroughs. It really does depend on priorities. The OP has a similar thread - oddly - on the Fort Worth forum (possibly symptomatic of the tendency of people outside the region not to understand the difference between Dallas and Fort Worth; Irving is in Dallas County and definitely a Dallas suburb, whilst Fort Worth is Tarrant County and has a different set of burbs). It would be easier to offer suggestions if the OP provided a bit more info regarding family composition, goals and priorities.
you are one of the few voices of neutrality and reasoning in this thread. I enjoy what you have to say!!
Dallas is like any other large, metropolitan area. The cost of living near the city is not much different than most places in NJ. You need to move out of the Dallas area, into the outer burbs to get the real housing value. The reason for the lower cost of living out there is simple, really... there isn't much there. People pay more to live close to the city because there is more to do, more places to eat, and the commute is easier. There is less demand to live an hour outside of Dallas. On top of that, growth has really slowed down in the south. Builders have bought and developed huge tracks of land with the assumption that Dallas was going to continue its exponential growth. When the economy tanked home values sank there more than most places.
In the case of NJ it's very different. There are no outer burbs. It's dense and there isn't any room for expansion which means there aren't a surplus of houses which keeps the demand somewhat high.
You can't really go wrong with either place. There are pros and cons to either area. If it were me... I'd stay near water if I could. I hate being landlocked.
Dallas is like any other large, metropolitan area. The cost of living near the city is not much different than most places in NJ. You need to move out of the Dallas area, into the outer burbs to get the real housing value. The reason for the lower cost of living out there is simple, really... there isn't much there. People pay more to live close to the city because there is more to do, more places to eat, and the commute is easier. There is less demand to live an hour outside of Dallas. On top of that, growth has really slowed down in the south. Builders have bought and developed huge tracks of land with the assumption that Dallas was going to continue its exponential growth. When the economy tanked home values sank there more than most places.
In the case of NJ it's very different. There are no outer burbs. It's dense and there isn't any room for expansion which means there aren't a surplus of houses which keeps the demand somewhat high.
You can't really go wrong with either place. There are pros and cons to either area. If it were me... I'd stay near water if I could. I hate being landlocked.
Excellent post. I was trying to say this but couldn't quite get the right words together. There are still expensive and fancy parts of Dallas where you'll be paying the same amount as a fancy town in NJ. The cheap parts that every one raves about up here are far out from the core.
Absolutely. I've no desire to dis NY. One of the reasons we moved here was that we are an hour and a half by train from NYC. Indeed, before we moved to London we thought we were going to move to NYC, but after London we had no desire to live in a shoe box anymore and didn't want to be in the outer boroughs. It really does depend on priorities. The OP has a similar thread - oddly - on the Fort Worth forum (possibly symptomatic of the tendency of people outside the region not to understand the difference between Dallas and Fort Worth; Irving is in Dallas County and definitely a Dallas suburb, whilst Fort Worth is Tarrant County and has a different set of burbs). It would be easier to offer suggestions if the OP provided a bit more info regarding family composition, goals and priorities.
It's amazing really how someone residing in England who is female and blonde did actually know that there is a difference between Dallas and Fort Worth!
My original thread was just re Irving, which I put on the Dallas and Forth Worth forums...... someone removed it from the Dallas forum!!
My second thread..... this one, asking about Texas or NJ, I didn't even bother with adding it on the Dallas forum. Hope you're following this?
Priority is definately happy family life, getting our 2 kids (age 10 and 6) into a top notch school in a low crime family orientated neighborhood. My husbands career is important, obviously, hence the move. At the moment my goal is to get settled in the US without getting shot or mugged by a hooded, underwear showing gang member!! LOL There have been some interesting discussions on here.... a real eye opener!!
You may feel safer in a suburb of Dallas. A poster above over-stated the cost differential of property in close-in vs outer Dallas suburbs. Likely you could find something nice and affordable in Irving itself. With his work being in Irving, you could actually live in Denton, which is in a different county entirely and is a small, formerly rather rural university town (two universities there, University of North Texas and Texas Womens University) that would provide you all the necessities and a relatively smaller and safer environment in all probablity. The commute from Denton to Irving wouldn't be terribly bad and you would be outside the Dallas suburbs entirely, although still within the greater metro area. I personally think that Irving itself would be fine, though. The Dallas area has much less to offer culturally than living on the East Coast of the US and I suspect you'll have a greater culture shock, but people there really are genuinely friendly, which should compensate to some degree. I'm responding to the tone of your last post, with the worry about crime and wanting a safe place for your kids. This doesn't mean that the Newark, NJ area would be bad, but rather that from a psychological standpoint you may feel more comfortable in Texas in terms of the things that matter most to you.
As to knowing the difference between Dallas and Fort Worth, I hope you didn't take offence. Many people outside Texas in the US don't seem to understand that Dallas and Fort Worth are two entirely different cities some 30 miles away from one another and that they have rather different cultures even if they are both located in Texas.
I think the OP was kidding at the end. Parts of Dallas are unsafe, parts of NJ are unsafe.
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