Relocating to DFW from SoCal. Help! (Dallas, Plano: school, quality of life, living in)

[socketz]

I definitely agree that Dallas has just about every type of shopping that CA does....may go under a different name, but it's there. Contrary to what people outside TX think, there is a huge base of very health conscience people in the DFW area. For example, in my little part of West Plano, there are about 4 Yoga places located in various strip malls within the area.

[Debsi]

Originally Posted by skyblu

You don't have to give up organic food; besides Whole Foods there is Central Market and Sprouts. Also, many mainstream grocery stores here have much better organic sections nowadays.

The point about Trader Joe's is that it's inexpensive health/very good food.

I too look forward to TJ's arrival here to give Whole Foods a run for its money. No contest. Equal or greater quality for what, 1/3 the price? My husband and I make a decent living, I think, but we certainly couldn't afford to do all our food shopping at Whole Foods. I think I paid $4 for a bag of 3 roma tomatoes once.

But I'm not an all organic eater anyway. Just giving my two cents.

[Debsi]

Originally Posted by NWCaligirl

I'll be moving to Dallas in august/September from Orange County, CA.(but I'm from the NW- Portland and Seattle) I've heard a lot of bad things about the traffic, but can anyone tell me how it compares to here? And also, I'm pretty set on living in Uptown, is this a good area? Sounds like there is plenty to do, but how is the crime rate there? Are there a lot of parks and outdoor things uptown or close by?Also, is it reasonable to think that there are plenty of jobs in uptown as well?Thanks for all your help!

Where I live, in Richardson, there are several nice parks in the area. There are places to play tennis, bike, jog, etc, and I'm also not far from a nice lake (pond? ) with ducks on it.

The biggest adjustment for me after the move was the weather - I moved during mid July. I knew it would be really hot, but somehow that isn't the same as living in it! My second summer here was much easier, I guess your body adjusts to it.

Traffic is just horrible for the people that commute from downtown to the far northern suburbs, but that won't be a problem for you.

[socketz]

Note that traffic is relative. Living close to downtown is not necessarily a good thing .

In my line of work, I don't have a customer that resides below Richardson (the one I had in Waxahachie just moved to Richardson because he could not find Engineers down there).

The northern burbs get slammed alot here, but in reality, most of the High-tech work in Dallas seems to exist in the Plano/Richardson/Carrollton areas. That's my downtown.

For me, up town would be as far to drive to most of these guys as living in a much nicer area like Frisco or Mckinney. Again, Dallas the city is not the center of the universe in DFW, most of the work is spread out all over the DFW area, so you really need to factor that in if you have yet to find work out here. For instance, you may reside in uptown then get hired by Raytheon (huge employer) in Mckinney. That would be like 40 miles door to door.

Also, the traffic here is bad if you work during peak hours. However, what I've found is that there are 10 ways to get everywhere in the area. If I have to drive during these peak hours, I take surface streets and it works out great. If surface street plan 1 is crowded, resort to plan 2. Again, there are typically 10.

[GoPadge]

Originally Posted by socketz

Note that traffic is relative. Living close to downtown is not necessarily a good thing .

...

Also, the traffic here is bad if you work during peak hours. However, what I've found is that there are 10 ways to get everywhere in the area. If I have to drive during these peak hours, I take surface streets and it works out great. If surface street plan 1 is crowded, resort to plan 2. Again, there are typically 10.

Traffic.... relatives.... plan 2..... My wife calls me about once a week to ask me for an alternate route. I guess a spouse that works at a PC all day, is the poor man's GPS.

[socketz]

Is there a website that I can track DFW traffic on ?

We use http://www.sigalert.com/map.asp?Region=San+Diego in San Diego, and my wife does the same thing....in fact, she calls me from San Diego while I'm in Dallas and asks me to tell her how the traffic looks. Gotta love the web :-)

[GoPadge]

Google Maps also offers traffic now.

[momof2dfw]

Originally Posted by socketz

Is there a website that I can track DFW traffic on ?

We use http://www.sigalert.com/map.asp?Region=San+Diego in San Diego, and my wife does the same thing....in fact, she calls me from San Diego while I'm in Dallas and asks me to tell her how the traffic looks. Gotta love the web :-)

The news websites list traffic snarls.
wfaa.com
nbc5i.com

[midnightbirdgirl]

Originally Posted by socketz

BUT....most of CA is close to the beach.

I lived in San Diego in what was called 'inland' and I was less than 20 mins from the beach. The developed areas of CA are mainly along the coast.

Now I do love Palm Springs.....that's pretty inland, Desert.....wouldn't want to live there.

Not a big Trader Joe's fan.....do miss mountains, but I'm getting a nice does of them this week while I'm on travel in Salt Lake City.

Most of cali is not close to the beach...
Most of us have to travel over 3 hours in traffic to get a a beach and then find parking...granted cali has tons of coastline, but not all the coast line is surf friendly.
Inland SD is nothing like actually being inland! Inland SD is STILL SD!! I used to live in Vista and that was only about a 30 minutes from the water...but that still is not very inland!!
Most of Cali development is not coastal, I don't know where you get you info, but something isn't right there...look at San Bernardino County, Riverside, Kern, Millions of houses, all inland!
I just get sick of misconceptions about California. Just trying to keep it real.
MBG

[socketz]

San Bernardino County, Riverside, Kern...

Let's not forget Bakersfield, Stockton, Victorville (yuck cubed).

The first two of your examples are within an hour, the third gets a 'well, why would you want to live there anyway' (Picacho is nice, but the state prison in your backyard is creepy)

If you look at where the population density is in CA, most is within an hour of the coast (LA/Bay Area, Orange County, Most of Riverside County and San Diego)....That's about 12-15 million people.

There are people that live away from the coast, but even 2 hours to the coast is not an unrealistc drive.

Being on the ocean with moderate weather is a HUGE draw for CA, not matter how nuts the RE prices are....