Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Where I lived in Texas you could forget about living in a good school district unless you could afford a McMansion.
There is really no public transit at least none that's worth a damn. Traffic is awful & their answer is to put in toll roads which cost much more than whatever minor toll one might run into driving around Buffalo metro. While there are some nice big parks small neighborhood friendly parks are nowhere near as common as what I find here in Hamburg.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BigD_JT_14221
Similar thoughts on DFW. Citry schools are awful. Suburb schools are pretty good in the higher-rent areas.
Traffic is horrendous. Toll roads everywhere and expensive.
While Dallas has the "DART" (Dallas Area Rapid Transit), it has major problems, due in large part to the sprawl of DFW. I'd use it if I could, but it doesn't have stops near my house or near my work.
Good point on lack of parks too.
It's like they say: "you get what you pay for"
The awful city schools and suburb schools tend to be like that every place. The more wealth in the a district, the better the school you'll likely provide. Not to mention the parents tend to be more involved in the better schools.
Traffic can suck in DFW, but I guess that is the product of being one of the larger metro regions (and fast-growing) in the nation.
DFW isn't as naturally beautiful as upstate New York. Just the way it was created I guess. However, I do find DFW (and Texas) more interesting, at least on a personal level, to me than here in upstate NY.
The awful city schools and suburb schools tend to be like that every place. The more wealth in the a district, the better the school you'll likely provide. Not to mention the parents tend to be more involved in the better schools.
Traffic can suck in DFW, but I guess that is the product of being one of the larger metro regions (and fast-growing) in the nation.
DFW isn't as naturally beautiful as upstate New York. Just the way it was created I guess. However, I do find DFW (and Texas) more interesting, at least on a personal level, to me than here in upstate NY.
I should've been more clear on the schools. I think the main difference is that in WNY you can afford to live in top rated school districts on a lower middle income salary. What I (and jblake, I believe) were saying is that many of the top public school districts here in TX are in areas that a lower-middle class person could not afford. Examples here include Highland Park, Southlake/Carroll, Sunnyvale ISD.
As for traffic, sure its a large area and has experienced a lot of growth. It's just one of those drawbacks that needs to be mentioned about the area. When 1.5 - 2 hours of every workday is spent in traffic (and no option for public transportation) it bears mentioning as a quality of life topic. With gas prices going up it only makes this a bigger issue.
I'm not sure what you could find more interesting about the DFW area than WNY, but to each his own. It sure isn't a place of natural beauty. I'd have a hard time naming an uglier place than this actually. Any time someone from out of town comes to visit, I always draw a blank on where to take them. Downtown has little to offer. Ft Worth Stockyards and Sundance Square is neat but a very long drive. Suburbs are just a bunch of strip plazas... WNY on the other hand has 1 of the 7 wonders of the world right in your backyard. Add to that the waterfront, river, lake erie, great architecture, gorgeous summer weather to do anything outdoors. There really is a lot to offer a visitor to WNY.
I spent a month in Dallas one week a few March's ago for some software training. You are correct there was precious little to see and do. We went to a BB game and some chain restaurants. The downtown area was pretty dead except for the area wth a few chain restaurants. The landscape was pretty uninspiring. The weather was cold and drizzly the whole time, but the trainer insisted it was not usually like that.
Definitely not a place I would consider going back to on a vacation with the family.
I should've been more clear on the schools. I think the main difference is that in WNY you can afford to live in top rated school districts on a lower middle income salary. What I (and jblake, I believe) were saying is that many of the top public school districts here in TX are in areas that a lower-middle class person could not afford. Examples here include Highland Park, Southlake/Carroll, Sunnyvale ISD.
As for traffic, sure its a large area and has experienced a lot of growth. It's just one of those drawbacks that needs to be mentioned about the area. When 1.5 - 2 hours of every workday is spent in traffic (and no option for public transportation) it bears mentioning as a quality of life topic. With gas prices going up it only makes this a bigger issue.
That's exactly what I was saying. In Austin the top schools are Lake Travis & Westlake, if you're middle class there is little chance you'll be able to find a neighborhood within those districts that you can afford to live in. Other areas have a mix of good but not great schools & poor ones. I lived in Pflugerville which is a suburb just north of Austin, It has 3 high schools. Pflugerville HS is above average but nowhere near great, Hendrickson is average at best & Connally (the HS that served my neighborhood) is a football factory that couldn't care less about academics (something that is very common in Texas). Here in WNY its no problem to find schools that are on par with the best Texas has to offer in mostly middle class areas (Hamburg, Frontier, Lancaster, etc).
Traffic in Austin is horrendous ......... 45 minutes for a 12 mile drive. You can say that Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio are bigger than Buffalo & blame that on the traffic all you want but I also lived in Denver & Baltimore, the traffic was nothing like the nightmare it is in Austin (which is better than Houston & DFW).
That's exactly what I was saying. In Austin the top schools are Lake Travis & Westlake, if you're middle class there is little chance you'll be able to find a neighborhood within those districts that you can afford to live in. Other areas have a mix of good but not great schools & poor ones. I lived in Pflugerville which is a suburb just north of Austin, It has 3 high schools. Pflugerville HS is above average but nowhere near great, Hendrickson is average at best & Connally (the HS that served my neighborhood) is a football factory that couldn't care less about academics (something that is very common in Texas). Here in WNY its no problem to find schools that are on par with the best Texas has to offer in mostly middle class areas (Hamburg, Frontier, Lancaster, etc).
Traffic in Austin is horrendous ......... 45 minutes for a 12 mile drive. You can say that Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio are bigger than Buffalo & blame that on the traffic all you want but I also lived in Denver & Baltimore, the traffic was nothing like the nightmare it is in Austin (which is better than Houston & DFW).
To further illustrate the point on schools, I saw on Yahoo today that 2 of the school districts I mentioned are in the "Top 5 most affluent neighborhood's in America" (Carrol and Highland Park - median household income over $225k) America's most affluent neighborhoods - Yahoo! Real Estate
I suppose Hamburg is ok. If you like 150 plus inches of snow each year. Why in the world would you live in the Southtowns in the snow belt ?
Lewiston would be the best of all locations even if you drive further to work. It's actually located on an escarpment so yes....there are some real hills up that way with about a 300 foot drop in elevation from the south to north end of Lewiston. Very nice scenery for WNY standards. Plus, the village has strict codes that prevent scumbags and section 8ers from renting like the aforementioned towns do.
lewiston is inconvenient..no services..very isolated up there.
lewiston is inconvenient..no services..very isolated up there.
Lewiston = depending on the part of the Town/Village you are in is only 5-15 minutes from the Military Road shopping area with it's massive outlet mall, Wegmans, K-Mart, Target, Super Wal-Mart and on and on and on.
Lewiston has a very large Tops Grocery store and a very walkable main street.
Lewiston is on interstate 190 and is only 20-25 minutes from downtown Buffalo and a little over an hour from downtown Toronto.
I don't really consider that at all isolated, in fact i think it is one of the most centrally located areas in the bi-national region, plus it gets only about 35-45 inches of snow in an average year
I lived up in NNY (Franklin County) for a few years, now that is isolated ... Lewiston not so much.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
