Houston vs. Dallas (San Antonio, Austin, Fort Worth: community college, pit bulls, dental)
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Houston doesn't even have a Barneys New York.
It only has 2 high-end department stores.
Dallas doesn't have an Ikea either, Frisco does. Houston had the first one in Texas for many years.
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Originally Posted by kate_she
Dallas has about 7 high-end department stores.
Houston had the first upscale Galleria in Texas.
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Originally Posted by kate_she
Houston SUCKS at sport. Who even cheers for Houston Texans.
The 6 million people who live in Houston do & that's all that really matters.
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Originally Posted by kate_she
Dallas Cowboys is the most famous football team in the world.
This may have been true at one point. They suck & have sucked since their last Super Bowl win in the early 90's.
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Originally Posted by kate_she
Dallas is know for its architecture buildings. From Fair Park to Dallas Arts District.
Houston has the top 3 tallest buildings in Texas putting Dallas at 4th with their tallest.
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Originally Posted by kate_she
Dallas highways look the same as Houston. Now San Antonia Highways look ugly to tell you the truth.
Houston's network of freeways is far superior to Dallas' old crumbling freeways. Houston built the first freeway in Texas, I-45.
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Originally Posted by kate_she
Dallas is more pedestrian friendly than whole Houston. Uptown Dallas I should say.
Uptown Dallas is Dallas' only dense area. Houston as a whole is denser than Dallas. Ever heard of the Texas Medical Center?
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Originally Posted by kate_she
Gay Friendly. Dallas wins on that, from oak lawn to oak cliff.
Cathedral of Hope in Dallas is world's largest liberal Christian church with a primary outreach to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons.
Houston has the first openly Lesbian mayor in the United States. Quite a historical event if you ask me.
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Originally Posted by kate_she
Dallas didn't put the man on the moon but we did help Houston accomplish that because techonology started in Dallas with the help of Texas Instruments.
If you can find any evidence of this please let us know.
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Originally Posted by kate_she
You can't seem Houston from miles of away because it has a terrible building codes. Random buildings everywhere in the city = ugly
What are you talking about? I've seen Downtown Houston & the Williams Tower from over 20 miles away on a clear day/night!
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Originally Posted by kate_she
DART is more extensive than the Houston Rail. It does look better but that is because it is so small in light rail miles.
Houston rail cars are more futuristic looking than Dallas' old cabooses.
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Originally Posted by kate_she
Dallas skyline looks really nice at night, I might even say better than houston.
I agree! Houston's skyline at night is no slouch though. It could be better, it could be worse. During the day is when Houston's skyline really shines.
This may have been true at one point. They suck & have sucked since their last Super Bowl win in the early 90's.
Houston has the top 3 tallest buildings in Texas putting Dallas at 4th with their tallest.
Houston's network of freeways is far superior to Dallas' old crumbling freeways. Houston built the first freeway in Texas, I-45.
Uptown Dallas is Dallas' only dense area. Houston as a whole is denser than Dallas. Ever heard of the Texas Medical Center?
Dallas' freeways are not crumbling, the freeways in Houston look dirty.
Top 2 tallest you cannot count a antenna, you can only count a spire.
Dallas has better looking buildings, Houston's buildings are bland.
The Dallas Cowboys are waaaay better than the sorry Texans. At least we came close to going to the super bowl.
Who cares about TMC. Dallas has 385 sq mi, Houston has 600 sq mi. Dallas will become denser than Houston. It will take longer for Houston to get dense because the city has a massive amount of land.
Dallas doesn't have an Ikea either, Frisco does. Houston had the first one in Texas for many years.
Wow an IKEA, Frisco is still part of the Metroplex. And I was talking about high-end stores not build yourself furniture stores.
Houston had the first upscale Galleria in Texas.
Dallas Has 3 upscale shopping centers compare to just only
The 6 million people who live in Houston do & that's all that really matters.
Not everyone cheers for the worst football team in america.
This may have been true at one point. They suck & have sucked since their last Super Bowl win in the early 90's.
They are still, espacially with the new opening of Dallas Cowboys Stadium. The Cowboys are worth more than all Houston team sports put together.
Houston has the top 3 tallest buildings in Texas putting Dallas at 4th with their tallest.
It is not about tall buildings. It is about how it looks . You can have an ugly tall building just like Houston has.
Houston's network of freeways is far superior to Dallas' old crumbling freeways. Houston built the first freeway in Texas, I-45.
I really don't know that much about freeways but I know we are going to have a park over it.
Uptown Dallas is Dallas' only dense area. Houston as a whole is denser than Dallas. Ever heard of the Texas Medical Center?
That is not pedestrian friendly.
Houston has the first openly Lesbian mayor in the United States. Quite a historical event if you ask me.
Dallas is know for its gays.
If you can find any evidence of this please let us know.
Because Jack Kilby invented the future
GPS devices, cellphones, laptops, the Internet—let’s just skip to the end and say “modern life as we know it.” That’s what the late Jack Kilby made possible when he constructed the first working integrated circuit (better known as a microchip) in a lab at Texas Instruments in the summer of 1958. The discovery earned Kilby the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics, but he deserves more. Consider this: in the 2007 film adaptation of Transformers, the invention of the microchip is attributed to reverse-engineering by teams of scientists studying an alien robot and an ancient, colossal power cube of mysterious provenance—and it makes complete and total sense. That’s how brain-melting Kilby’s accomplishment remains.
What are you talking about? I've seen Downtown Houston & the Williams Tower from over 20 miles away on a clear day/night!
No you can't remember the random building in the way. UGLY CITY>
Houston rail cars are more futuristic looking than Dallas' old cabooses.
I rather have old cabooses than just like 1 mile of rail. LOL
I agree! Houston's skyline at night is no slouch though. It could be better, it could be worse. During the day is when Houston's skyline really shines.
Who cares about TMC. Dallas has 385 sq mi, Houston has 600 sq mi. Dallas will become denser than Houston. It will take longer for Houston to get dense because the city has a massive amount of land.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. The city of Houston continues to grow at a much faster rate than the city of Dallas while the entire DFW metro area grows at a faster rate than metro Houston. Furthermore, no area in the state can touch Houston's innerloop. Dallas has to fight too hard with its suburbs to really sustain a constant rate. Think about it, Dallas just finally made 1.3 million people after being stuck in the 1.2 million mark for the last decade! Houston was at 1.9 million people in 2000 and has grown to over 2.2 million today.
And to Metro Matt, Most of the people I know in Houston can't stand the Texans. They laughed me out of the building when I wore a Texans hat a little while after I moved here.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. The city of Houston continues to grow at a much faster rate than the city of Dallas while the entire DFW metro area grows at a faster rate than metro Houston. Furthermore, no area in the state can touch Houston's innerloop. Dallas has to fight too hard with its suburbs to really sustain a constant rate. Think about it, Dallas just finally made 1.3 million people after being stuck in the 1.2 million mark for the last decade! Houston was at 1.9 million people in 2000 and has grown to over 2.2 million today.
And to Metro Matt, Most of the people I know in Houston can't stand the Texans. They laughed me out of the building when I wore a Texans hat a little while after I moved here.
It's going to be an upward battle because of the large city limits like you said, but it still has the advantage of a fast growing city limit population to counter that.
It's going to be an upward battle because of the large city limits like you said, but it still has the advantage of a fast growing city limit population to counter that.
Having lived and/or worked in all these cities, here is my take...
I would say in order of preference:
1) Austin
2) Dallas or San Antonio about equal
3) Houston (too big, too ugly, too polluted, too humid, hurricane factor, too rainy, but best economy)
Don't particularly like Houston. Austin is nicer, but don't really like Texas because of the weather. However, during this horrible economy, Texas is the place to be right now to get a job with lower unemployment rates than most other cities. Austin is getting too big now as well. I think the perfect sized towns are around 750K people to 1 million.
Dallas, Austin, and Houston all have similarly strong economies, although Houston easily being the strongest of the 3 with the most diversity. Dallas is strong but less diverse. If we add San Antonio into the mix, then it is just barely the worst economy of the 4, but still stronger than most other cities close to its size right now in other states. San Antonio actually has just about the same unemployment rates, but a lot of the jobs are slightly lower paying. San Antonio is mostly hispanic with Houston and Dallas being more of a racial mix, and Austin having less racial diversity overall (if you care), but Austin's hispanic population increasing rapidly now as well. San Antonio has a stronger hispanic culture and feels more like a border town than the others do. Nothing against hispanics, but you could feel like the only person in the room that doesn't know Spanish if you live in San Antonio and well - don't know Spanish. San Antonio is the cheapest place to live of the four cost-of-living wise, with Houston a close second. Dallas and Austin depends on where you live, the cost of living is about the same between the two, but both are more expensive than Houston or San Antonio by about 15% on average.
Houston has hurricanes, Dallas has tornadoes, San Antonio rarely has any serious tornadoes, Austin gets an occassional serious tornado (mostly north of Austin is where Tornadoes are more common). Tornadoes less likely to affect you than a hurricane of course, so hurricanes are worse for most people.
Prefer Dallas over Houston just slightly, but to most people it would be the same. Dallas traffic slightly worse in some ways because there are less alternate "smart" routes to go around trafffic. Houston traffic can be bad, but if you know what you are doing there are alternate routes for avoiding most of the traffic in most parts of the city. Houston has a superior road system, Houston's highways are probably the best in the US for its size. Given the amount of people, Houston traffic is light compared to most cities of its near equal size. Austin traffic about the same as Houston depending on what part of town you live in, but Austin's road system is more like Dallas in that there are fewer alternate routes to avoid traffic if you do get stuck. Houston still easier to get around during rush hour in MOST parts of town if you know the tricks. San Antonio traffic is mostly a non-issue, except I-35 which is a mess sometimes.
Shopping is about the same between Dallas and Houston, really if you make your decision of where to live based on the closest shopping mall --- then you may just need a brain transplant. Dallas's downtown area feels more shopper friendly and more developed, but Houston is catching up (Houston used to have only a primarily "business based" downtown area, but that has changed somewhat and has some consumer friendly parts of downtown now). Austin's downtown is just weird and doesn't feel like a real downtown, it is more younger feeling I guess, but haven't been down there in a while.
Austin is more liberal and less conservative than the other 4 cities by far, and for that matter more liberal than any other city in Texas. If you are a drug addict, hippy, homeless person, or hardcore democrat, then you'll feel more at home in Austin. In Houston or Dallas the homeless people will rob you, in Austin they will wash your windows and ask you for pot. In San Antonio, the homeless people will kidnap you and try to take you across the Mexican border for ransom (ok just joking).
Dallas has better weather in early Fall and late spring, and at least it still gets a little cooler at night during this time of year and less humidity than Houston, but Dallas humidity gets almost as bad during certain parts of the year. Dallas gets hotter in the summer and can have longer dry spells and droughts than Houston. Austin and Dallas weather are almost identical, except that Dallas is a little colder in the winter if you live on outskirts, but not by much.
You get about 2 months of nicer weather from Dallas than from Houston, but it all catches up and becomes miserably hot soon enough (the humidity just starts earlier in Houston). Dallas has almost a "real" winter, especially the outskirts of Dallas - whereas Houston's winter is more mild becuase of the coast (unless you live in far far northwest or north Houston than it is slightly closer climate to Dallas and Austin).
Dallas is a little closer to snow skiing than Houston if your into that sort of thing and you can make it to Santa Fe, NM from Dallas in one day of driving (650 miles but it's country driving and high speed limits mostly).
Dallas has some ok scenery not too far away, Houston scenery pretty bland except right at the coast if you like the beach (so far no oil spill effects, looks like the Texas coast may be the cleanest place left on the Gulf when all this is over, go figure). Austin has the hill country which gets boring after a while anyhow, and Dallas has a "mini" rolling hill country that is not quite as hilly as the Austin area. Dallas however does have the Oklahoma mountains and ozarks not too far away. All cities have plenty of lakes and water, with Dallas having a lake every 10 miles it seems. The ouachita mountains in Oklahoma are only 3.5 hours drive or so from Dallas, basically they are an extension of the Ozarks, definitely a neat place to visit (especially in Fall) and the Talihema scenic drive is pretty spectacular (better scenery than even the Texas hill country persay). At 3.5 hours it is still a pretty long drive though. These "barely mountains" rise up to 2,800 feet in elevation, and some of them do look like mountains more than hills and are interesting to hike around. Closest real mountains to Austin are Davis mountains which are 450 miles away.
Austin is more centralized to the other cities if you are looking for that sort of thing, 1.5 hours to San antonio, 1.5 hours to Waco, 3 to 4 hours to Houston or Dallas depending on where you go and when.
Western Dallas towards Ft worth has a drier climate than the rest of Dallas, as well as Ft Worth has less humidity at night. Dallas is right smack on a fast changing climate dividing line, go west of Dallas and it becomes much drier (more like Austin and eventually even drier than Austin), go east of Dallas and it becomes wetter (more like Houston w/ pine forests). It's a pretty dramatic "greenery" change in a fairly short distance, with the far west sides getting only 30-35 inches of rain and the far east sides getting 40-45 inches of rain, go east a bit more and it gets more rain than even parts of Houston. Austin is on a similar climate dividing line, but not as extreme as Dallas. Go west and it gradually gets drier until you hit the desert, go east and it gets wetter until you hit grasslands and more forests.
Austin by far has the least crime of the BIG 4 overall (Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas), but all big cities have crime if you live or work in the wrong part of town.
If your thinking of moving to Texas, go away because there are too many people here already.
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