Dallas, Houston, or San Antonio for African American single mom of one in her early 30s (Austin: best neighborhoods, apartment)

[Melz222]

Which city do you think would be best for someone like me. I'm a single mom of a toddler girl. I'm looking to relocate, my cities of choice is Dallas, Houston, or San Antonio but I'm looking more at Dallas or San Antonio. I consider myself to be a young black professional. I'm educated both bachelor and master's degree. I want good neighborhoods, good schools, but also entertainment and night life. I will need to make new friends and would like to get into the dating scene again hopefully get married. Any suggestions. I'm originally from NYC.

[Laminate7]

budget?

[jgn2013]

Originally Posted by Melz222

Which city do you think would be best for someone like me. I'm a single mom of a toddler girl. I'm looking to relocate, my cities of choice is Dallas, Houston, or San Antonio but I'm looking more at Dallas or San Antonio. I consider myself to be a young black professional. I'm educated both bachelor and master's degree. I want good neighborhoods, good schools, but also entertainment and night life. I will need to make new friends and would like to get into the dating scene again hopefully get married. Any suggestions. I'm originally from NYC.

If you mostly date black and/or white men, the demographics alone will be more favorable in Dallas...assuming the choice is between Dallas and San Antonio. If you don't have a particular preference, I'd suggest visiting each place to figure out which vibe works best.

Dallas:

What you're comfortable spending budget-wise on an apartment or home will go a long way in determining the best neighborhoods to live in. A high concentration of black professionals reside in southern 'burbs like Cedar Hill, DeSoto and Duncanville. If you enjoy more non-black diversity, Uptown, Richardson and Plano are usually safe bets. Think carefully about where you work so that your commute isn't too much of a nightmare.

"Middle class" to upscale nightlife (the types of places that young professionals frequent) are really geared towards whites more than what you'd see in NYC, Chicago, Miami etc. You'll see way more Asians and whites, and far fewer Latinos and blacks than what you'd expect given the demographics. I'm speaking of the trendiest night spots. The concept of "black and bougie" seems foreign here and I say this as a native Dallasite.

On the flip side, most black professionals seem to get settled down rather quickly. Compared to other cities, successful blacks get married and start families more readily, perhaps because the ratio of men/women isn't overly skewed one way or the other. I can probably count on one hand the number of black males & females with college degrees that are single...and most of those are by choice. In other cities, the black culture seems to center around successful singles whereas here, that's not really the case. If you mix online dating with Meetups and some casual hobbies, you'll likely have enough dates to keep you busy (depending on your tastes and standards). Just have to sort through the frogs to find your prince.

[NoClueWho]

Houston, by far. It's got a stronger, more cohesive, more upwardly mobile Black community and offers more cultural events and more venues that are specifically geared towards Black people/Black professionals.

Also, coming from NYC, you would DEFINITELY appreciate that Houston is more culturally and ethnically diverse, WAY more integrated, and feels much more international and cosmopolitan than either Dallas or San Antonio.

[Melz222]

I have considered Atlanta but as a NY native, everyone that live in NY is moving to Atlanta. I wouldn't be surprised if half of the residents in Atlanta are from the NY/NJ area. The cost of living in Atlanta is rising at a very high rate.

[Melz222]

Thank you. I've heard Houston is more culturally diverse. Something to consider. I also hear the cost of living is very high compared to Dallas and San Antonio.

[BigDGeek]

Originally Posted by Melz222

I have considered Atlanta but as a NY native, everyone that live in NY is moving to Atlanta. I wouldn't be surprised if half of the residents in Atlanta are from the NY/NJ area. The cost of living in Atlanta is rising at a very high rate.

Same in Dallas.

[NoClueWho]

Originally Posted by Melz222

I have considered Atlanta but as a NY native, everyone that live in NY is moving to Atlanta. I wouldn't be surprised if half of the residents in Atlanta are from the NY/NJ area.

LOL, so true. In the Dallas area these days, though, everybody seems to be from California, so.......

Originally Posted by Melz222

The cost of living in Atlanta is rising at a very high rate.

Well, scratch Dallas off your list, then. It's already more expensive to live in than Atlanta and with all the Californians flocking to the Dallas area in droves, it's DEFINITELY the most expensive city between it, Houston, and San Antonio, with the cost of living RAPIDLY rising every year now.

OP, I mean no harm when I say this, but it's extremely important if you are considering picking up and moving across the country: I think you should do a little more research on the cost of living between Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio and compare the COL in each city before you decide on any other reason to pick one or the other.

Living in a city that checks a lot of "pros" boxes for you means nothing if you can't afford to live there and fully enjoy the things it has to offer, and you have scrape by until you eventually get priced out anyway.

Texas is not as "cheap" as it was 10 or even 5 years ago. Moreover, some Texas cities are way more expensive than others (looking at you, Dallas).

[NoClueWho]

Originally Posted by Uconndoit

Like others have said. Cost of living for Dallas and Atlanta are pretty much the same.

That's not true anymore. Maybe 5 or 6 years ago, but not now. Since Toyota and all of these other huge companies have relocated to DFW from California---and to a lesser extent, from the East Coast---and brought so many of their employees with them, the cost of living in DFW has shot up very high and very quickly and is considerably higher than Atlanta's COL.

I can't count the number of friends and people I know who have tried to relocate from Atlanta to Dallas within the last 2 or 3 years and were surprised at how much more expensive to live in Dallas is now than Atlanta, many of them choosing to head back to or stay in Atlanta for the lower COL. And these are professional people with professional salaries, too.

I know someone is going to challenge me on that, and come behind me with a bunch of outdated stats, lists, and links, but the rising cost of living in DFW is one of those things that is happening so fast and that honestly is probably so under the radar to most folks outside of DFW (most folks outside of Texas are still so focused on Austin), that many stats, lists, etc. probably have not had much time to update or PROPERLY keep track of DFW's COL in comparison to Atlanta or other major or peer cities outside of Texas.

[Melz222]

San Antonio was also on my list and I hear the cost of living is still less than the rest of the metropolitan areas in Texas but I am a bit concerned with the lack of diversity in San Antonio. Will I feel isolated as a single black women in San Antonio? I hear it is very friendly. Is it friendly to my kind?

Oh I didn't want to say it but my other reason for staying away from Atlanta is the number of gay black men in that city. From what I hear, it's so many of them and there a lot of undercover gay men as well. I have nothing against the LGBT community, I want to say that off the back. But as a young single heterosexual female, that's hard to overlook.