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Rename This Group?


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Mabye this should be called "DFW". Or, have two groups, one Fort Worth, the other Dallas. The DFW seems to make more sense. I know many people in FW are sensitive about thier own identity and are not crazy about being considered "a bourough of Dallas". Anyways, just a thought.

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  • 3 months later...
Mabye this should be called "DFW".  Or, have two groups, one Fort Worth, the other Dallas.  The DFW seems to make more sense.  I know many people in FW are sensitive about thier own identity and are not crazy about being considered "a bourough of Dallas".  Anyways, just a thought.

Very good idea. People here don't realize that people live in the Dallas/ Ft Worth don't actually live in Dallas or Fort Worth but mid cities/Plano/Richardson etc etc.

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^What's funny to me is that THE FEW people on this forum that "hate" on Dallas obviously keep up with the Dallas board as much, if not more, than they keep up with this forum. . .so for all of you who fit in that category, I have one thing to say. . .Stop Drinking The Haterade! :D

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The DFW rename thing, however childish, is probably a good idea. I (with two others) formed the Howard Dean for President DFW organization back a year ago and the biggest hurdle I faced wasn't raising money or getting people to events -- it was petty Ft. Worth people bitching because they wanted a campaign autonomous from the Dallas group.

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I also find it funny that the few people who hate Dallas on here seem to find the most obscure, pointless facts to demean Dallas with.

Lets do a comparison of important facts about both Dallas, (DFW) and Houston. First off, I'd like to note that I found all of the DFW facts on the Dallas Chamber website in an easy to use table format. I found the Dallas Chamber site from simply typing "dallas statistics" in Google and clicking on the first link on the search page.

Houston's Chamber did not show up at all with a "houston statistics" search and I had to do a specific one for "houston chamber" to even find their website. Additionally, once there, the information is in PDF format (bleh) and is hard to navigate.

Some data on both sites were from different years, so for comparison I used various government and industry publications with the same dates.

-------------------------------------------------

Population (U.S. Census)

City

Houston #4 1,953,631

Dallas #8 1,188,530

Metropolitan Areas

Houston #10 4,669,571 (Houston, Galveston, Brazoria)

Dallas #9 5,221,801 (Dallas, Ft. Worth)

-------------------------------------------------

Unemployment (Bureau of Labor Statistics)

Houston 5.7 (November)

Dallas 5.6 (November)

Over the past year, Dallas' unemployment rate never went above 5.8 while Houston's hit 7.0 in June 04

-------------------------------------------------

Wage (Bureau of Labor Statistics)

Houston $41,534 (not including sales)

Dallas $42,031 (not including sales)

------------------------------------------------

% Below Poverty Level -- Families (Bureau of Labor Statistics)

Houston 16%

Dallas 14.9%

-------------------------------------------------

Median Housing Price (Real Estate Journal)

Houston $139,400

Dallas $179,875

------------------------------------------------

Apt Rent (Real Estate Journal)

2 br/2 bth 950 sq ft.

Houston $686

Dallas $799

------------------------------------------------

School District Ratings (Texas Education Agency)

Houston Academically Acceptable

Dallas Academically Acceptable

-------------------------------------------------

Fortune 500 Companies (County)

Houston 18

Dallas 20

-------------------------------------------------

Mean Travel Time to Work (U.S. Census)

Houston 27.4

Dallas 27.5

-------------------------------------------------

Crime Statistics (Federal Bureau of Investigation Crime Reports)

Houston

Crime Index 149247

Murders 256

Rapes 892

Robberies 11212

Assault 12598

Burglaries 26905

Larceny 73445

Vehicle Theft 23939

Arson 1696

-- Houston's crime level is worse than the national average in every category.

Dallas

Crime Index 112040

Murders 196

Rapes 656

Robberies 8041

Assault 8125

Burglaries 20351

Larceny 56306

Vehicle Theft 18365

Arson 1567

-- Dallas' crime level is worse than the national average in every category.

I think the statistics speak for themselves. Dallas has less crime and higher income. I lived in Dallas for over 5 years, and in a suburb of it almost all of my life. Hardly ever did I hear a resident of Dallas pulling the "my city is better than your city" crap toward Houston.

When I moved to Houston over a year ago, the first question I heard was "Which do I like better, Dallas or Houston?" To this day, almost 18 months later, I still get it.

We should get over our inferiority complex. Maybe if people would look at what Dallas is doing right and try to do it better, we'd have more success than just saying people who like Dallas better than Houston are dumb, snotty or have dallitude.

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Hmmm.... well if you don't care... then don't post :-)

And since the 2003 population stats are an ESTIMATE in which Dallas and San Antonio are only seperated by 6,400 people, I'd say its still up in the air as to which is the larger.

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^What's funny to me is that THE FEW people on this forum that "hate" on Dallas obviously keep up with the Dallas board as much, if not more, than they keep up with this forum. . .so for all of you who fit in that category, I have one thing to say. . .Stop Drinking The Haterade! :D

713 To 214... I moved the opposite of you. I moved from 75226 to 77057. I lived in the Adam Hat Lofts in Deep Ellum.

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I'm not defending one city or the other... I just like for people to stick to the facts. Yakuza is exactly right - you can't go off of total numbers for a meaningful comparison of the two cities... you have to go by crimes per 100,000 people to do an apples-to-apples comparison between any two cities.

If you have questions about Houston, www.houston.org (the Greater Houston Partnership - not the Houston Chamber ) has a ton of statistics available - as well as lots of general information on the metro area.

There are many things in Dallas that should be examples for Houston (such as Uptown, Mockingbird Station, DART, commuter rail, etc...); meanwhile, Dallas could learn a lot from Houston, too (Convention center hotel, Houston-Harris County Sports Authority, downtown rejuvenation, the Uptown District)... I'm glad we share the same state and we can enjoy each. I, btw, also lived in Dallas for a few years - in Deep Ellum. After being there this past week, I was heartened to see the development in Uptown, but discouraged to see what was happening in my old digs in D.E. A lot of the businesses I once frequented are long gone... lots of abandoned store fronts. Houston's "entertainment district" would be wise to use it as an example of what can happen if you let crime - or the perception of it - infiltrate an area...

While we may bicker back and forth about the two, unfortunately, people in other parts of the U.S. are reading stories like the following (from the New York Times).

December 20, 2004

The Heady Days of J. R. and Landry Are History in Humbled Dallas

By RALPH BLUMENTHAL

DALLAS, Dec. 15 - The losing Cowboys are fixing to defect again, the police chief and city manager were shown the door, a 350-pound gorilla made his own grand exit, and the hometown daily, former employer of the ex-reporter now ensconced in City Hall, is pinning Pulitzer Prize hopes on a pitiless expos

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Danes75: very interesting find.

I lived in Southwest Houston most of my life and now lives in Northern Suburbs of Dallas.

And i have to say that no one up here in the DFW areacares which Metro area is better, but when i come down here to see my folks..i get all these kinda of questions, which is better? Houston or Dallas? What do you want me to say? Dallas? Houston?? being more political and say both are great places? It's just pointless.

(note that i said Metro not cities, it's very misleading to use cities, for example San Francisco is a small city but the metro area is huge, and no one says San Francisco, they always say Bay Area, sames would hold true in the DFW area)

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Fob -- I've noticed the same thing. Houstonians obsess over DFW. DFW does not obesess over Houston.

Our preoccupation with DFW makes Houston look petty and inferior. We have nothing to feel inferior about, but we keep on acting like we do.

I think it started back in the early eighties when "Dallas" was one of the most popular shows on TV. That really seemed to burn Houstonians up to see this show about their "little sister" city to the North come on every week and achieve such national (even international) appeal. Throw in the "Dallas Cowboys'" many Super bowl appearances (and Victories), along with the moniker "America's Team" and a recipe for hatred and envy was created. Consequently, Houstonians feel compelled to show the rest of America (specifically Dallas) why it is a great city TOO. So, some Houstonians hang on to the one glaring fact that gives Houston a "one-up" on Dallas. . .population.

Just my opinion on the subject. What does anyone else think?

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Fob -- I've noticed the same thing. Houstonians obsess over DFW. DFW does not obesess over Houston.

Our preoccupation with DFW makes Houston look petty and inferior. We have nothing to feel inferior about, but we keep on acting like we do.

I think it started back in the early eighties when "Dallas" was one of the most popular shows on TV. That really seemed to burn Houstonians up to see this show about their "little sister" city to the North come on every week and achieve such national (even international) appeal. Throw in the "Dallas Cowboys'" many Superbowl appearances (and Victories), along with the moniker "America's Team" and a recipe for hatred and envy was created. Consequently, Houstonians feel compelled to show the rest of America (specifically Dallas) why it is a great city TOO. So, some Houstonians hang on to the one glaring fact that gives Houston a "one-up" on Dallas. . .population.

Just my opinion on the subject. What does anyone else think?

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So, some Houstonians hang on to the one glaring fact that gives Houston a "one-up" on Dallas. . .population.

Yeah, the only thing that Houston has over Dallas is the City Population, but Metro wise, Houston is still short 500k or so.. However, like i said before, people up here don't really care at all. It's all about the money, which region offers more career opportunities wins to them. In this regard, DFW won me over.

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