Which is more connected. College Station to Houston or Waco to Dallas?

[sedimenjerry]

Well for one thing, A&M is much larger than Baylor and therefore has a larger influence on its city (BCS) than Baylor has on Waco. With undergrads and postgrads, A&M is over 3 times larger than Baylor so BCS is very much tied to A&M and since the A&M-Houston connection is so great, the BCS-Houston connection is going to be strong as well. It's basically a college town connected to the city with the most former students/professionals.
It never seemed to me that Waco had that same college town feel. More of just a smaller/mid metro city. So in that regard, size and location, it's kinda like Beaumont is to Houston. No super strong college connection, just a smaller metro attached by interstate to a large metro.

The big difference to me is that the suburbs of Houston are much closer to BCS than the major suburbs of DFW. I know the southside does have suburbs like Waxahachie or Midlothian, but those aren't major employment centers like Richardson or Plano and they aren't as highly rated as places to live. From A&M's campus you can be at 99 in less than an hour and then you're practically to Cypress. Even though Waco to DFW has I-35, SH-6 to 290 is basically freeway the whole way. And the Energy Corridor is only an hour 15 minutes or so from BCS. Or you can go to Katy and Cinco Ranch which are pretty nice suburbs all within an hour and a half. Just seems like the better portions of Houston are closer to BCS than the better portions of DFW are to Waco.


A&M/BCS to Houston reminds me a lot of UGA/Athens to Georgia. Athens is definitely a college town and pretty much revolves around UGA. Tons of UGA grads live in Atlanta. GA-316 connects the two. Athens is a little closer mileage wise. In fact, many people live in a suburb like Lawrenceville or Dacula and commute to Athens or vice versa.