Just what makes Dallas classy or unique in Texas? (Houston: how much, high school)

[TheOverdog]

My uptown building is filled with folks who rent, while also leasing their $150-250k luxury vehicles.

60%-70% of BMWs, Audis, Mercedes etc are leased. The actual buyers are rare, not the leasers. And then everyone thinks that anyone who buys an Audi/Land Rover/Mercedes as being frivolous, but in actual sales fancy pickup trucks make up 2-3 of the top 10 most purchased luxury vehicles costing more than $50k in the US month after month.

Lots of people in Uptown rent, but it's like the #3 or #4 area in Dallas proper with the highest median income and is achieved with smaller household sizes and younger ages than places like Plano or Richardson (where 2 earners are most common and farther along in their careers). In other words, it's a choice they are making.

In other words, saying Uptown is just '$30k millionaires' is mostly incorrect assumptions about how other people live.

[radiolibre99]

Facts.

[DTXman34]

Originally Posted by happycrow

Caveat Lector: I haven't been to Houston in a while. So I may be ENTIRELY out of date.

The fundamental difference is that Dallas' suburbs are cities in their own right and culturally frequently exist in explicit opposition to "cultural Dallas," with no employment dependency on Dallas as a city whatsoever.

Dallas has a GREAT reputation in Dallas. Irving, Plano, Richardson, let alone the Fort Worth side of the Metroplex? Not so much. It's possible to overstate the degree to which "suburban DFW" disdains Dallas for its combination of lackluster governance and glitz-over-substance, but you might have to work at it to do so. (example: Fort Worth builds nice little bridges and fills in its potholes. Dallas builds "world class" bridges but its surface roads are Chicago quality as soon as you're out of the Moneytown neighborhoods).

Which means: people living in DFW who choose to remain in Dallas proper have generally done so intentionally rather than by "commuting happenstance." Either because they're oikophobic elites for whom "suburb" is an explicit pejorative and for whom leaving a very selective set of zip codes would be a fundamental betrayal of their identity, or because they're consciously attracted to the "urban lifestyle" and prefer the urban cost/benefit rate sheet to the suburban one. That's why the "30k-illionaire" stereotype is so obvious here: people look at that lifestyle and relish it, even if they know they can't sustain it in the long term.

If you like glitz, Dallas has a lot of it to offer, and people who go that route are generally very happy with it.

This is generally how I would describe it. You left out the "creative class" and people of "alternative lifestyles" who tend to be more accepted and integrated in Dallas proper than the more conservative, rigid suburbs.

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by DTXman34

This is generally how I would describe it. You left out the "creative class" and people of "alternative lifestyles" who tend to be more accepted and integrated in Dallas proper than the more conservative, rigid suburbs.

I can't speak for all the suburbs but we've got some "alternative" families in Richardson and nobody hassles them. Quite the opposite...it seems like the new millennial families moving into the area are falling over themselves in an effort to be the most "hip" and "tolerant."

Me, I don't care if my neighbors are gay, straight, black, brown, polka-dotted...as long as they don't bother me.

[DTXman34]

Originally Posted by BigDGeek

I can't speak for all the suburbs but we've got some "alternative" families in Richardson and nobody hassles them. Quite the opposite...it seems like the new millennial families moving into the area are falling over themselves in an effort to be the most "hip" and "tolerant."

Me, I don't care if my neighbors are gay, straight, black, brown, polka-dotted...as long as they don't bother me.

Broadly speaking. Yes I realize suburbs like Richardson and even Plano have been diversifying and more tolerant of differences. Frisco ISD is even ahead of many when it comes to religious diversity in schools.

[radiolibre99]

Are the surrounding towns in North Texas diverse and unique enough to offer something worth traveling to from Dallas? Sort of like how LA has surrounding towns and burbs each different from the other? Houston just seems to annex places and it's one giant metro area. DFW metro seems more diverse.

[Gunion Powder]

Originally Posted by DTXman34

He said "true Texan ideal." What does that make the other cities in Texas then? San Antonio has zoning. Same with Fort Worth and Austin. Fort Worth and San Antonio tend to be tougher places to build whatever you want, whereas Dallas, Austin, and Houston are more laissez faire.

I never said the Texan ideal equated to a complete lack of zoning. In fact, my comment was merely an observation. San Antonio and Austin may have zoning, but they're still less eloquently designed than DFW, in my opinion. North Texas cities just look more American to me. On the previous page it was brought up how Dallas is hemmed in by a bunch of smaller cities. This is typical of American cities but not Texas cities.

[DTXman34]

Originally Posted by Gunion Powder

I never said the Texan ideal equated to a complete lack of zoning. In fact, my comment was merely an observation. San Antonio and Austin may have zoning, but they're still less eloquently designed than DFW, in my opinion. North Texas cities just look more American to me. On the previous page it was brought up how Dallas is hemmed in by a bunch of smaller cities. This is typical of American cities but not Texas cities.

I still don't see it. Many U.S. cities are not eloquently designed at all. Have you ever driven in Pittsburgh? Or even LA for that matter? Dallas does have some of that Texas ideal aka frontage roads. Not exactly a pretty drive from DFW Airport to DT Dallas. A drive around I-635/Galleria area is no different than Uptown Houston or 410 in San Antonio. Corporate office buildings scattered all over the place with no thought whatsoever towards walkability.

As far as the other TX cities, Austin does feel pretty zoned. It faces worse NIMBYism outside Downtown than Dallas does IMO. It has an almost perfect pattern when you drive north out of Downtown -- high rises to mid rises to residential bungalows. Streets laid out in the generic N-S, E-W pattern as well as numbered (45th St, 6th St, etc). If any city feels typically American, it's Austin. But then again what's "typically American?"

[Gunion Powder]

Originally Posted by DTXman34

I still don't see it. Many U.S. cities are not eloquently designed at all. Have you ever driven in Pittsburgh? Or even LA for that matter? Dallas does have some of that Texas ideal aka frontage roads. Not exactly a pretty drive from DFW Airport to DT Dallas. A drive around I-635/Galleria area is no different than Uptown Houston or 410 in San Antonio. Corporate office buildings scattered all over the place with no thought whatsoever towards walkability.

As far as the other TX cities, Austin does feel pretty zoned. It faces worse NIMBYism outside Downtown than Dallas does IMO. It has an almost perfect pattern when you drive north out of Downtown -- high rises to mid rises to residential bungalows. Streets laid out in the generic N-S, E-W pattern as well as numbered (45th St, 6th St, etc). If any city feels typically American, it's Austin. But then again what's "typically American?"

Dallas-Fort Worth is. More so than the other cities, anyway. We can agree to disagree.

[biscuit_head]

Originally Posted by Gunion Powder

Dallas-Fort Worth is. More so than the other cities, anyway. We can agree to disagree.

Do you mean American as in "Middle-American"? It would help if you articulate and clarify what you mean instead of trying to shut down the conversation when people are asking you questions.

If you did mean Middle-American, I'd be inclined to agree that the DFW area layout has a lot more in common with places like OKC, Wichita, Kansas City, Omaha, etc with the flat-to-rolling terrain, a uniform grid system for the streets, wide streets, major intersections zoned for commercial activities, etc. than it does with other cities in Texas. Houston's layout seems to resemble that of other Gulf Coast Cities, and Austin's layout reminds me of Atlanta's in some ways (not quite as zoned and pristine as Dallas, but nowhere near as haphazard as the layout you see in Houston, lack of a grid system, more defined by the terrain, etc.).