Dallas vs. Houston (San Antonio, Austin, Fort Worth: luxury, vacation, zoning)

[AK123]

Originally Posted by Lakewooder

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcon...n1.365b84e.html (broken link)

Dallas-Fort Worth rides rising tide
Region wins state bragging rights over Houston area

By PAUL FOUTCH / The Dallas Morning News
pfoutch@dallasnews.com

The urge to rank everything is our No. 1 pet peeve, but for those keeping score, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. dethroned Exxon Mobil Corp. atop the Fortune 500 list released Monday, and Dallas-Fort Worth topped the Houston area in the number of companies listed.

D-FW placed 24 companies in the Fortune 500, the fourth-highest among U.S. metro areas, displacing Houston, the perennial No. 4, which came in with 23.

.....

Somewhat misleading because it's comparing the Dallas + Fort Worth metro to Houston. Houston, the city, has the second highest number of Fortune 500 companies in the country.

From:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortu...00/2007/cities

Cities # of Fortune 500 headquarters.
New York 45
Houston 22
Atlanta 12
Chicago 11
Dallas 11

[AK123]

Originally Posted by lh_newbie

The quoted article compares the Houston metro with Dallas metro. Some of the Fortune 500 companies in Houston are in fact outside the city limits, like in The Woodlands and such. It's a fair comparison. Incidentally, next year, Dallas will tack another one to it's list: Comerica.

I don't agree. For one thing, Fort Worth is not a small city.

And only one of those companies in the Houston metro is outside of Houston... the one in The Woodlands. The other 22 are in Houston. For DFW, more than half of them are outside of Dallas.

[AK123]

Originally Posted by SpeedyAZ

Museums are just one aspect of the arts scene. Dallas is building a new $250 million dollar arts center and has tons of galleries, museums (including the famous Nasher sculptures), etc.



Not much and it's not even comparable to Dallas' tourist industry. They have the School Book Depository, Southfork Ranch, West End, Deep Ellum, many conventions plus numerous other tourist attractions. The two aren't even close.

I don't think you know much about Houston's art scene. It also has "tons" of galleries and smaller museums (like the Menil) in addition to the larger ones.

As far as tourism, my response was to someone who was basically saying Houston had none at all.

[GoPadge]

I took mpope409's challenge and found the following data.

According to infoplease the top destination states for US tourists in 2004 were:

1. California
2. Florida
3. Texas
4. New York
5. Pennsylvania
6. Illinois
7. Ohio
8. North Carolina
9. Georgia
10. Virginia

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0922050.html


Also as per infoplease, the top destination states and cities for foreign tourist in 2003 were:

State/territory...................U.S. city
Number of.........................Number of
arrivals..........................arrivals

1. New York.....4,100,000 1. New York......4,000,000
2. Florida......4,100,000 2. Los Angeles...2,200,000
3. California...4,000,000 3. Miami.........2,200,000
4. Hawaii.......2,000,000 4. Orlando.......1,800,000
5. Nevada.......1,400,000 5. San Francisco.1,600,000
6. Guam...........901,000 6. Oahu/Honolulu.1,600,000
7. Illinois.......901,000 7. Las Vegas.....1,300,000
8. Massachusetts..901,000 8. Metro DC area...901,000
9. Texas..........901,000 9. Chicago.........721,000
10. New Jersey....721,000 10. Boston.........721,000
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0903702.html
The city list is matched in order here http://tinet.ita.doc.gov/cat/b-2003-...1.131521.02060

Of course some of these lists depend on who were surveyed...

Domestic Hot Spots: Top destinations according to travel agents...

1 Orlando
2 Las Vegas
3 New York City
4 Honolulu
5 San Francisco
6 Los Angeles
7 Miami
8 San Diego
9 Seattle
10 Washington

as per http://www.travelsense.org/destinations/hotspots.asp

One other side note, Atlanta holds the top spot for African American tourists. (http://atlanta.about.com/cs/historic...mertourism.htm)

[AK123]

Originally Posted by SpeedyAZ

My city is Phoenix/ Scottsdale, not Dallas.

When comparing cities, you look at ALL the aspects (including tourism) not just certain ones that favor YOUR city. I'm trying to point out a fact about Dallas while you're trying to dismiss it as unimportant.

I'm not trying to start an arguement here but it just bugs me.

I think you were the person in the Houston forum a week or so ago, who after comparing the two cities in there, it was obvious you hadn't done enough exploring or research on Houston and have a lot more knowledge and/or experience in Dallas.

[lh_newbie]

Originally Posted by JJP

I don't agree. For one thing, Fort Worth is not a small city.

And only one of those companies in the Houston metro is outside of Houston... the one in The Woodlands. The other 22 are in Houston. For DFW, more than half of them are outside of Dallas.

Well, my dad can beat up your dad.

Seriously now - this debate is silly. Debating city -vs- area is not getting anyone anywhere. I prefer to live in Dallas. You couldn't pay me enough to live in Houston because the humidity. Dallas has a lot of really good things going for it and I feel it will continue to grow and be a better fit for me and my wife.

Incidentally, Houston proper is much larger than Dallas, so I would hope the city limits would have more companies in general. Houston is 639 sq miles; Dallas 385. Both are huge compared to most other cities.

[mpope409]

That's all I've been trying to say. People always team up Dallas AND Fort Worth against Houston. Of course when you do that, it's going to turn up with DFW being more or whatever. You forget that Fort Worth is indeed not small. It's a large place, and is its own city. But when you take Houston proper and Dallas proper, in no way, form, or fashion is Dallas bigger or more. Is it better? That's up to one's own opinion. I would recommend Houston most of the time, but depending on what you're looking for, I may also suggest Dallas sometimes.

[GoPadge]

Of course the two cities (Dallas and Houston) differ on population and geographical size. If you're just comparing cities you would probably want to normalize the results on one of the two, population or area. You could also compare bases on MSA's, but you'd still have population and size issues.

The question then becomes are Dallas and Fort Worth really different cities*? (And you can't use the cultural feel test, as Lakewood and South Oak Cliff are different and yet still in Dallas.) If they are truely different cities then you would only want to compare Dallas and Houston. If they are the same city with multiple municipalities than you would want to compare the MSA's.

Of course with the power of lies, damned lies, and statistics you all can be right, depending on which logic you want to use....

* (It's based on my person theory that if in a metropolitian area the only divider between two cities is street sign, then they really aren't different cities, just one city with a govenmental split personality.)

[Synopsis]

They're both very large urban areas with tons to offer and a variety of differences. If Dallas and Houston were carbon copies of one another, neither one would be as grand as they are.

[LOK222]

houston is a swamp in the summer IMO

Dallas is more like paradise