Which is better Dallas or Houston??? (Fort Worth, Arlington: condo, theater, closing)

[Overcooked_Oatmeal]

Originally Posted by LAnative10

Thats a crock. Dallas makes up a higher proportion of its metro area than Atlanta, DC, Miami, or San Francisco.

True, but the schizophrenic layout of the metroplex keeps it from feeling like it has a "center" to it.

Don't you agree that Dallas has to compete with Plano and Irving for corporate relocations?

[Mister Nifty]

Originally Posted by stoneclaw

Well if the moon was made of cheese, there would be enough to feed the world for over 500 years. So what? It's not. It is what it is and Dallas is what it is, a city that is mainly comparable only when it includes Ft. Worth and the suburbs. IF Fort Worth didn't exist, we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

On to the next topic. Case Closed.

The question here is what are hospital beds to hotel rooms.
There will soon be 6000 hotel rooms in downtown Dallas. This is certainly a sign that something is going on somewhere in the vicinity. That event is mainly the convention center.
Close by, in the Stemmons Corridor, there is reportedly nearly a third of all hotels in the Dallas area. This number is almost 20,000. Discounting half of this to come up with a conservative estimate, let's say there are 10,000 hotel rooms in and around the Market Center and the Southwestern Medical Center. Regardless, the Stemmons Corridor should also be considered the prime hotel district in Dallas.
Consider that the total of these 16,000 hotel rooms would be an impressive sight in their own right and this isn't even including the hotel rooms in Uptown.
How many hotel rooms are there in Uptown? Well, there are the hotels in the Crescent development owned by the Hunt daughter. There is the Ritz. There is the W in Victory Park.
Just to be extremely conservative, let's estimate another 1000 hotel rooms located here which would make a total of 17,000 hotel rooms.
Are you beginning to get the picture?
You know, the TMC is impressive as it is, but it should never be compared to downtown Dallas. When using the methodology TMC uses in measuring its plant size, downtown Dallas becomes the surrounding central Dallas. Just the hotels located in this area would surpass the size of the "district" which is the Texas Medical Center.

[Mister Nifty]

Originally Posted by Overcooked_Oatmeal

True, but the schizophrenic layout of the metroplex keeps it from feeling like it has a "center" to it.

Don't you agree that Dallas has to compete with Plano and Irving for corporate relocations?

You claim that Dallas - Fort Worth is schizophrenic because you are naive. The metroplex is shaped as it is because warehouses can't be built a hundred stories tall. Because Dallas - Fort Worth is a huge distribution area, on the scale of Toronto, it has multiple business districts throughout the area to serve its interests, also on the scale of Toronto.
Toronto isn't as spread out as Dallas - Fort Worth because it has a huge number of condominiums. Even the small town one passes by on the way to Toronto has condominiums.
And, as I point out, Dallas has the phenomenon of "commercial shopping districts." In these districts, shopping is the focal point over an impressive amount of office space located nearby. Dallas has three such shopping districts in Preston Center, Northpark, and the Dallas Galleria.
The Galleria in Houston is located in a business district in comparison.

[Expert Opinion]

The Texas Medical Center in Houston is bigger than downtown Dallas. More businesses are in the TMC and more people are employed there. The number of hospital beds and hotel beds is irrelevant. This is an indisputable fact. Dallas is so overbuilt with hotels that most of them stand vacant and this will be the case for years to come. The difference between Houston and dallas is that the buildings in Houston are actually used for actual businesses and activities while in dallas they are left to rot, standing empty for years. There can be no comparison between the activity that goes on in downtown Houston, uptown Houston, the TMC and the Energy Corridor and the dead zone that comprises downtown Dallas. All the main activity occurring in DFW is in the dull, plain, dried-up, scorched, ugly suburbs.

[Expert Opinion]

Originally Posted by Mister Nifty

You claim that Dallas - Fort Worth is schizophrenic because you are naive. The metroplex is shaped as it is because warehouses can't be built a hundred stories tall. Because Dallas - Fort Worth is a huge distribution area, on the scale of Toronto, it has multiple business districts throughout the area to serve its interests, also on the scale of Toronto.
Toronto isn't as spread out as Dallas - Fort Worth because it has a huge number of condominiums. Even the small town one passes by on the way to Toronto has condominiums.
And, as I point out, Dallas has the phenomenon of "commercial shopping districts." In these districts, shopping is the focal point over an impressive amount of office space located nearby. Dallas has three such shopping districts in Preston Center, Northpark, and the Dallas Galleria.
The Galleria in Houston is located in a business district in comparison.

It is obvious you know nothing about Houston. Besides the Galleria there is the River Oaks shopping district which is just as upscale as anything in dallas. Also, the recently completed West Ave. is a very upscale shopping area. Also, BLVD place in uptown is another upscale shopping district that will open very soon. Also, Memorial City and the newly completed CityCentre are full of very high end places to shop. Houston easily matches dallas when it comes to inner city upscale shopping. Dallas has fallen way behind in this category in recent years. But to dallas' credit there are more Walmarts and El Rancho supermercados in the Dallas area than Houston.

[Overcooked_Oatmeal]

Originally Posted by Mister Nifty

You claim that Dallas - Fort Worth is schizophrenic because you are naive. The metroplex is shaped as it is because warehouses can't be built a hundred stories tall. Because Dallas - Fort Worth is a huge distribution area, on the scale of Toronto, it has multiple business districts throughout the area to serve its interests, also on the scale of Toronto.
Toronto isn't as spread out as Dallas - Fort Worth because it has a huge number of condominiums. Even the small town one passes by on the way to Toronto has condominiums.
And, as I point out, Dallas has the phenomenon of "commercial shopping districts." In these districts, shopping is the focal point over an impressive amount of office space located nearby. Dallas has three such shopping districts in Preston Center, Northpark, and the Dallas Galleria.
The Galleria in Houston is located in a business district in comparison.

What is all this nonsensical rambling? Have you been bouncing around in your rubber room all day? Hit the call button so you can your straitjacket adjusted.

Besides, Toronto is more of a world-class city than Dallas (or even Houston) will ever be. Don't bother to compare them.

[Lakewooder]

Originally Posted by Metro Matt

Houston is building a new 262 room - 19 story Embassy Suites Hotel in its downtown, which is taller than anything Dallas has seen in years..

Enjoy your new Embassy Suites in Houston!


The new Dallas $550 million, 1001 room Omni convention center hotel going up on the south side of downtown is 23 stories. The new Museum Tower going up in the nation's largest arts district on the north side of downtown is 42 stories.

[Cowboys fan in Houston]

Originally Posted by Overcooked_Oatmeal

Besides, Toronto is more of a world-class city than Dallas (or even Houston) will ever be. Don't bother to compare them.

On that, I fully agree.

There are no cities in the south that can touch Toronto for being a world class city. Toronto is leaps and bounds above all of them.

[Mister Nifty]

Originally Posted by Overcooked_Oatmeal

This is true. No wonder Houston feels more like a real city than Dallas does. Very few cities allow their suburbs to steal their glory the way Dallas, St. Louis, or Detroit has. Of course, the city of Dallas feels like a suburb itself in many areas.

If what you say is true, then why are all those thousands of hotel rooms located in central Dallas? It would be interesting to compare the numbers of hotel rooms located in central Dallas compared to the numbers located within Dowtown Houston, Uptown and the Texas Medical Center.
I'll try my best to come up with this comparison.
Why is this significant?
Well, as cores go, central Dallas is far ahead in terms of developing lightrail and retail than is the core urban area created by downtown Houston, Uptown, and the Texas Medical Center, although this area does have the Galleria, a goodly amount of retail in Greenway Plaza, just to the east and to the south of River Oaks in the Montrose area, and Rice Village. While this might seem impressive, it is not a whole lot of retail for what amounts to fifteen square miles of urban area. I came up with this figure by multiplying five miles between downtown and the Texas Medical Center by the six miles between downtown and Uptown and then by dividing it in half.
While Houston does stand a good chance of catching up in regards to developing lightrail, it really hasn't a clue in what it should do in regards to developing retail.
In comparison, retail is working itself out in central Dallas which is about 9 square miles. I came up with this figure by accounting for the 8 miles surrounding downtown Dallas and then discounting about half of it while also including half of the Stemmon's Corridor and taking in the area of Uptown stretching up to West Village Shopping Center and beyond.
The devlopers of Victory Park were wise trying to sell it as upscale at a time when the question of what prime was in central Dallas was in a state of flux.
Victory Park, Dallas, Texas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Say what you will about Victory Park, it was a bold move for them to compete with the Hunt development to the north.
As the dust is settling, the prime area of central Dallas is focusing to be around the Arts District. So, somewhere in that vicinity should be the prime area to develop upscale retail in central Dallas.
Dallas Arts District
Victory Park isn't a failure, but it will need to be revisioned more along the lines of a TOD with less upscale development. This will become the shopping district for future TODs certain to develop along Stemmons Expressway in the Market Center area between Uptown Dallas and The Southwestern Medical Center.
In regards to the expansion of central Dallas to the northeast, the West Village Shopping Center is developing to fill a void.
West Village, Dallas, Texas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Mister Nifty]

Originally Posted by LAnative10

On that, I fully agree.

There are no cities in the south that can touch Toronto for being a world class city. Toronto is leaps and bounds above all of them.

Funny. But you know many are predicting that the Dallas - Fort Worth area will surpass the metropolitan area of Chicago, sooner than later in fact, to become the third largest in the United States? Why would so many people decide to relocate to such a second rate area?
See, I think you live in the old world. Times have changed and cities are tending to concentrate more around airport-cites or what many people like to call an "aerotropilis."
Hands down, far and away, the principle aerotropolis in the Western Hemisphere, and perhaps the whole world, and the one that sits at the very heart of its metropolitan area, I might add, is DFW airport -- the Big Magnate!