Phoenix86
Lifer
- May 21, 2003
- 14,644
- 10
- 81
Saint Nick
Lifer
- Jan 21, 2005
- 17,722
- 6
- 81
Consider moving to Nebraska. We have a very low cost of living, and a lot of ample jobs, depending on your industry. We have tons of IT jobs. It's definitely not going to be "big city" compared to NYC, but believe it or not, there are a lot of fun things to do here.
Palvaran
Member
- Apr 13, 2002
- 86
- 0
- 66
HumblePie is spot on. I wanted to add a couple of other cities to this list -- Sugar Land and The Woodlands.
The Woodlands is very nice, very upscale, and almost like a small Austin in some ways with the amount of parks, pathways, and greenery. It is also home to Anadarko, a huge oil company. Case in point, the largest building between Houston and Dallas is theirs which is located at their Headquarters in the Woodlands off I-45. Lonestar is located here and is the largest community college in the district I believe with a ton of IT Jobs. Music wise, they have the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavillion and will have everything from 3 Days Grace to Nine Inch Nails. Demographically, this is a large white population.
Sugar Land is also extremely affluent and has more of that I want to be a big city feeling too. Scholastically, they have the best schools in the country. It doesn't have it's own Pavillion, but it does have it's own minor league baseball team. Demographically, this is about 1/3 White, 1/3 Indian, and 1/3 Asian.
Both cities are nice in that they are about 10-15 miles away from Houston so you can commute from those cities into Houston jobs as well.
The Woodlands is very nice, very upscale, and almost like a small Austin in some ways with the amount of parks, pathways, and greenery. It is also home to Anadarko, a huge oil company. Case in point, the largest building between Houston and Dallas is theirs which is located at their Headquarters in the Woodlands off I-45. Lonestar is located here and is the largest community college in the district I believe with a ton of IT Jobs. Music wise, they have the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavillion and will have everything from 3 Days Grace to Nine Inch Nails. Demographically, this is a large white population.
Sugar Land is also extremely affluent and has more of that I want to be a big city feeling too. Scholastically, they have the best schools in the country. It doesn't have it's own Pavillion, but it does have it's own minor league baseball team. Demographically, this is about 1/3 White, 1/3 Indian, and 1/3 Asian.
Both cities are nice in that they are about 10-15 miles away from Houston so you can commute from those cities into Houston jobs as well.
I figured by now both would be a part of Houston already, with how it was expanding.
Palvaran
Member
- Apr 13, 2002
- 86
- 0
- 66
Houston tried, but both cities have increased in wealth and power to the extent that they were able to successfully petition the state to NOT let them be absorbed which I believe is a good thing. Sugar Land and The Woodlands are pretty much some of the nicer cities in Texas and both have half of the tax rate that Houston has.
- Mar 20, 2000
- 102,402
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more than that, the way houston re-annexed kingwood lead to a lot of restrictions on how annexation can happen at the state level. that said, the woodlands pays houston money every year in exchange for not being annexed.
sugarland is an actual incorporated city, which the woodlands is not. i haven't looked into it but i assume annexing an incorporated area is much more difficult than annexing something unincorporated, such as the woodlands.
6th street, where you can party with people who don't live in Austin, homeless people, and bachelorette party groups.
chubbyfatazn
Golden Member
- Oct 14, 2006
- 1,617
- 35
- 91
Dallas (go north a bit) - great for raising a family.
Austin - what everyone else said above
Grew up in Plano, went to UT.
Austin - what everyone else said above
Grew up in Plano, went to UT.
I live in Dallas now, Addison area near Plano, and like it a lot. Traffic can be bad depending on where you live/work. I choose to live closer to work so I don't deal with it as much. Been here just over two years now. The company I work for has offices in Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and Houston so I travel to at least one location almost monthly. I work IT.
Austin is a large college town and very liberal. But like everyone else said there is a lot of indie type stuff to do and lots of bars. 6th street is great and 4th street is coming up as more of an upscale 6th street. Traffic can suck depending on the commute as well. The IT landscape is very good for the area so if you've got experience you shouldn't have a problem finding something. Summers are very hot and they usually get a bad ice/snow storm every year or two.
Dallas is very spread out. There are tons of things to do here but they can require a fair bit of driving. I've gone to Fort Worth a few times and each time is about 45-60 minutes on a Friday or Saturday evening. There is definitely more family friendly stuff to do here. There are some decent younger crowd places such as Uptown and downtown Dallas. Weather is similar to Austin. The IT landscape is very good just due to the sheer amount of people and number of businesses. There are a lot of areas to work outside of Dallas itself in a suburb such as Addison or Plano which also provide a large selection of living and social options.
If you're younger and like to get out to bars/clubs Austin will probably suit you better. If you prefer a more laid back and relaxed lifestyle you'll like Dallas. There is almost anything you could want in either city as far as shopping and things to do.
Austin is a large college town and very liberal. But like everyone else said there is a lot of indie type stuff to do and lots of bars. 6th street is great and 4th street is coming up as more of an upscale 6th street. Traffic can suck depending on the commute as well. The IT landscape is very good for the area so if you've got experience you shouldn't have a problem finding something. Summers are very hot and they usually get a bad ice/snow storm every year or two.
Dallas is very spread out. There are tons of things to do here but they can require a fair bit of driving. I've gone to Fort Worth a few times and each time is about 45-60 minutes on a Friday or Saturday evening. There is definitely more family friendly stuff to do here. There are some decent younger crowd places such as Uptown and downtown Dallas. Weather is similar to Austin. The IT landscape is very good just due to the sheer amount of people and number of businesses. There are a lot of areas to work outside of Dallas itself in a suburb such as Addison or Plano which also provide a large selection of living and social options.
If you're younger and like to get out to bars/clubs Austin will probably suit you better. If you prefer a more laid back and relaxed lifestyle you'll like Dallas. There is almost anything you could want in either city as far as shopping and things to do.
Traffic in Austin is FAR WORSE than traffic in the DFW area.
Cost of Living in Austin is HIGHER then the DFW area.
Austin has zero major professional sports teams. DFW has 4(I do not count MLS or minor league teams)
Austin actually has less "high" culture than DFW.
Other than those four things, Austin wins almost every other category.
Cost of Living in Austin is HIGHER then the DFW area.
Austin has zero major professional sports teams. DFW has 4(I do not count MLS or minor league teams)
Austin actually has less "high" culture than DFW.
Other than those four things, Austin wins almost every other category.
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The best school districts in the state are Carroll ISD(Most of Southlake, parts of Grapevine) and Highland Park(Highland Park/University Park, and a teeny tiny bit of Dallas). Those districts require you to be fairly well off/wealthy. However, they are not alone in DFW as 7 Of the top 10 school districts in Texas are located in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex.
That said if you want to get technical Dallas ISD has the best schools, as they have ~8 of the top 15 high schools in Texas and the #1 High School in the country. Overall, as a District, they are one of the worst in the state and country.
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Dallas and Houston are on par with eachother. They tend to switch places every other year lately.
As for drilling inside city limits. There aren't that many wells inside city limits of the major cities in DFW. No new development is occurring inside city limits of the major cities either as it has been banned. Frankly drilling in the Barnett is almost non existent these days as its played out until natural gas prices double.
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Humblie Pie, toll roads(more specifically toll lanes) are most certainly coming to San Antonio, and San Antonio doesn't have much say in that. Parts of I-10, I-35, US281, and Loop 1604 will see toll lanes thanks to TxDOT.
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Arkaign
Lifer
- Oct 27, 2006
- 20,736
- 1,379
- 126
If you can set yourself up to do a lot of work from home / remote support type of work, and can also get enough podcasts/etc to entertain yourself on commutes, you can do REALLY well in the DFW area (Austin as well) by finding a nice place to live that's out of the expensive areas to live.
This will blow someone's mind from NYC, but you can get a nice 2,000sf brand new home for around $100k by doing this in DFW, then commute to a job that pays $75k-$125k/year. If your credit isn't shot, your monthly mortgage on a 20-year fixed loan AND all of your core bills (homeowners insurance, electric, water/trash/sewer, FIOS) will be less than $1k/mo. Amazing. It's hard to find a cardboard box in NYC for that.
Agree that DFW has most things, but often you'll have to drive your arse off to get to them. I'm attaching a map of the area. 90% of this sucks. But this is an absolutely massive area in terms of square miles, and there are a lot of pretty cool places.
I like Austin better in many ways, but it is a bit more expensive. Denton is another college town that's not nearly as cool as Austin, but it's also incredibly cheap to live in and around it.
I lived in Frisco for ahwile, which is incredibly pretentious. It also has Jerry Jones 'Starwood' neighborhood, where a lot of people live in 5-25 million dollar homes and have private jets/etc. Silliness. Everything is a big chain, there are 85 billion cops and all they do is write tickets for 42/40mph, etc. It also was completely untouched by the economic crisis in 08/09. A lot of DFW area looked a bit worse for the wear during that time, but not Frisco, they were only making 3m for that christmas bonus instead of 3.5m.
This will blow someone's mind from NYC, but you can get a nice 2,000sf brand new home for around $100k by doing this in DFW, then commute to a job that pays $75k-$125k/year. If your credit isn't shot, your monthly mortgage on a 20-year fixed loan AND all of your core bills (homeowners insurance, electric, water/trash/sewer, FIOS) will be less than $1k/mo. Amazing. It's hard to find a cardboard box in NYC for that.
Agree that DFW has most things, but often you'll have to drive your arse off to get to them. I'm attaching a map of the area. 90% of this sucks. But this is an absolutely massive area in terms of square miles, and there are a lot of pretty cool places.
I like Austin better in many ways, but it is a bit more expensive. Denton is another college town that's not nearly as cool as Austin, but it's also incredibly cheap to live in and around it.
I lived in Frisco for ahwile, which is incredibly pretentious. It also has Jerry Jones 'Starwood' neighborhood, where a lot of people live in 5-25 million dollar homes and have private jets/etc. Silliness. Everything is a big chain, there are 85 billion cops and all they do is write tickets for 42/40mph, etc. It also was completely untouched by the economic crisis in 08/09. A lot of DFW area looked a bit worse for the wear during that time, but not Frisco, they were only making 3m for that christmas bonus instead of 3.5m.
fjmeat
Diamond Member
- Jan 13, 2010
- 4,874
- 0
- 76
I'm looking for a permanent home in Grapevine.
Going here tomorrow night with the family.
http://www.grapevinetexasusa.com/christmas-capital-of-texas/lighted-evening-events/parade-of-lights/
Going here tomorrow night with the family.
http://www.grapevinetexasusa.com/christmas-capital-of-texas/lighted-evening-events/parade-of-lights/
Depends
If you are a Rich Republican snob you want Dallas.
If you are broke Liberal bloke you want Austin.
MetalMat
Diamond Member
- Jun 14, 2004
- 9,687
- 36
- 91
Woodlands is pretty upscale, unless you have the $$$ you would probably need to live in Conroe if you decided to live north. If I had to pick in place in the Houston city limits to live it would be Sugar Land or the Galleria area if I wanted more of a night life.
MetalMat
Diamond Member
- Jun 14, 2004
- 9,687
- 36
- 91
Yep, though for my field there are far more job opportunities in Dallas & Houston (I really should be living in Houston). Dallas and Austin have great looking woman, when I lived in downtown Austin a couple years back every afternoon I would drive home it literally looked like a model shown when the weather was nice out.
Until last summer '12, I lived in Dallas for 13 yrs and can say that there is no shortage of jobs in IT there. My first 7 yrs there I switched job every year just because I got bored, got more money, or better location and mostly worked with big fortune 500 firms as both consultant and direct employees. ATOT minimum salary there isn't uncommon if you're an SME in your field. Seems like everyone own at minimum a SFH with 2 car garage there and the low cost of food/housing gives you extra to buy new toys and travel. DFW is a massive airport so going anywhere is easy short hop away. The area is shopping mecca and yeah, lots of good food for me since I love steak and BBQ. Great place to start and raise a family. Schools are uber competitive there especially in North Dallas (Plano specifically). What did me in was the crazy weather, you get the extreme worst of both world -- crazy hot summer and freaking cold winter, toss in a random tornado and tennis ball sized hail.
Yeah I agree that the IT job market is probably better in Dallas than Austin. Although Austin has a lot of tech jobs and software jobs, Dallas has more. They will also pay you market value compared to the Austin job market. Why? The job market is more diverse in there. Actually I think Houston and Dallas job market is better than Austin. However, if you are a software person than Austin is also a good choice.
I grew up in Texas. Born in Houston and raised in Austin. It's changed a lot, 183 and Duval use to be a 4 lane road with stop lights .. not the case anymore.
Which city is better? It's really comes down to your preference, each city is unique. Dallas is a major city while Austin is still somewhat of a smaller city but is rapidly expanding. You won't get all the big perks of a big city and to some people that is important. Such as good medical branches, pro sports, and better stores all around.
Austin is more of a town feeling but still has lots to offer. Although there are some short falls. The medical branch here is decent but not as good as Dallas or Houston (if that is important to you). Limited selection of stores - compared to Houston or Dallas. Heck it was hard for me to haggle with the car dealership years ago since there aren't many Toyota/Honda dealerships here.
Several good responses here in this thread and too much to type. Overall I like Austin, Dallas is just not for me. I could move there if need be for a job but I'm happy here for now. Good luck with your decision, I bet whatever you decide you'll enjoy it in Texas.
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