JasonDFW

I assure you it is not a contradiction on my part, just you not following the details closely enough. The person who quoted the figures works for the city of Dallas proper. So the figure he gave was for Dallas only. He had to make a guess for Fort Worth (which should be taken with a grain of salt) and didn't even do a tally of other Dallas County cities. Rather than get reports from all over the metroplex the Chron decided to run this non-story with little input from the majority of the metroplex. That's part of the reason why nobody else in the state or LA has these inflamatory headlines and the bias except Houston. Even Blaydes hadn't heard of the paper's tantrum, another sign of the fact it is a non-story. In the end the people will find temporary homes in the metroplex and the only thing to come of this discussion was a quality Dallas bashing on HAIF. Jason

You don't have to lie to me Red, seriously. Jason

Why exactly are they disappointed? They don't like Fort Worth and the other cities in the metro? There are some nice cities around the metro with some friendly people that they shouldn't be afraid of. Jason

Willy, when did you move to Dallas? I've admired your down to earth Fort Worth posts and never knew you were in Dallas. Jason

No, he is not. That's been my point all along. Let's go to paragraph 3: Let's go to one official in the whole metro and run a story on it! Make him guess as to what the rest of the metro can hold, and run with it. That's good reporting! Jason

They're talking about the Dallas Metro Coog. Terribly confusing for you in the past, I know. Actually you just have trouble reading the context of the use of the word, which as I mentioned is certainly not the first time you've done it. Jason

Did you miss that the first time, that the metro was supposed to absorb the 40k people? That would explain some of the confusion I've read here. Jason

Don't worry, the metro will pick up the slack just as the state suggests. Jason Well if the state wanted DFW to house 40,000 people, and they're all welcome in Fort Worth, then why would this thread exist? On a side note, Houston will not have to endure a Katrina-like strike. There are reasons Houston is as far inland as it is. Jason

Actually, the fact that it did happen is the only reason that post made sense. I think you missed the point entirely. Jason Yes, like I said the confusion was merely due to temporal variance in the people required. Makes total sense. Jason

Actually, the load requested by the state will likely be performed in full. That's my prediction anyway. What was said was the plan wasn't drawn up to do it. Of course, it's in the forum's best interest to claim we will fail. Jason If you build up a plan you can try to avoid as much chaos as possible. Is that too much to ask? Apparently. You know, like getting people out of a city plan? Making sure people aren't stuck on 45. Oh whoops. Who could have predicted from Friday night traffic what would happen on 45??? Jason

Well then that would match the situation we had in Dallas, where people like myself had to struggle to find something to do while others like my wife couldn't walk 10 feet without finding someone she could help in some way or another. I said that specifically as a response to what Redscare said, which was that basically they could use all the help they have, which contradicts what you're saying. I bet it could be explained by spatial and temporal variances in the volunteer requirements of course, but my comment about what would have been said still stands. Jason

Shaw said the city of Dallas could not handle it. My wife has worked with every facility in the city and she believes that is true. In the end the county and other counties like Tarrant and Collin will pick up the slack, and this whole thread will be all about nothing, except just a thread to let Houston pat themselves on the back and tell themselves how great they are. Which would be fine and well-deserved except for the odd contradiction of claiming part of what makes you so great is your are so humble. Jason I read it and I challenge you to state specifically where I have misunderstood something. Jason

Shaw only represents the city of Dallas. The 40,000 number is the number expected to be absorbed in North Texas. I know it would benefit your agenda to not keep up with the facts here but please. Jason

That's exactly the type of chaos they don't want, and is the motivation for a plan to be put in place. And no it doesn't sting that a city of 1.2million can't handle the same as the 3.6million Harris county, it is just common sense. Jason

The part where they said that the quality of care would suffer because of that quote (given these are mostly special needs people) and the insinuation without that info that they would not do it. On the 2nd paragraph, my wife is skilled in this area as it is very close to what she does every day, so she was really needed where she was. Next time though, I'll come down and volunteer with you then. If this were turned around the other way though, I'll add that people here would say you must not have gotten enough help from the people of Houston. The Dallas mayor is complaining that she didn't get assistance and a plan from the state on where these 40k people would be scattered about the metroplex. It is difficult for the mayor of a town of 1.2million to host a big meeting with the governments of another 5 million people and get all this worked out. It is much better handled at the state level, but the state of Texas is notoriously weak in any social service area like this. Do you really believe housing self-sustaining people with the cash to spend on superbowl tickets is anything like 40,000 special needs people? Jason

It's funny how 18 sources throughout Texas and Louisiana ran with that story and only Houston added the twist and anti-Dallas title. Jason

I emailed my wife to ask her the source. Her non-profit agency receives reports from the "The Chronicle of Philanthropy" which is not based in Dallas and in her agency seems to be well respected source. Jason Yeah, with all the "30k Millionaires" spread from uptown to Plano we should get even more credit for beating Houston. Everyone down there is an oil tycoon right. Jason

Weird, I read we were in the top 10 and Houston was several notches behind. Jason

It really works out well when you take a quote out of context. I wonder if the author of that article was actually down there volunteering with us at Reunion to actually reflect on the wild comparison of it and the Reliant Park complex? And to the poster comment specifically, I can personally attest to the fact that unskilled people helping down there (with no social work skills or connections) like myself and most of the city workers are not what is needed. They needed more people like my wife but there are just not enough to go around. She'd be happy to go down there again but she doesn't want to see it end up like before. Jason

That was right about the time when they built the world's largest airport, so I guess the funds for a sea port connection would never be found after that. Even today the way a few fight to even repeal the wright amendment I can't see anything ever being done to "weaken DFW airport." That'd be the argument anyway. Jason

Dallas county used to have digital images of the houses on the CAD page until last year but now they're gone. Perhaps for the reason you mentioned. Jason

Pittsburgh makes any Texas city look like a piece of cake. You can't even use a map in Pittsburgh because you have no idea if the two streets cross. You could be high on the side of a cliff looking down at the road you wanted to connect to. Also, the townships mess everything up. Everyone goes by townships but many maps don't even bother putting them on. Local signs tend to be only for cities so that doesn't help. Then many places have pittsburgh addresses but for whatever reason they're not in Pittsburgh. This makes even using a GPS a pain unless your GPS can search for addresses without cities like so do. In Houston or Dallas I can use a GPS to find anything perfectly, but in Pittsburgh there are so many streets clumped next to each other that often the GPS can't react fast enough. Texas cities tend to be laid out on a grid and this solves most of those problems but you can't have a grid when everyone lives on the side of a hill. Jason

There are no more CMSAs, which were combinations of multiple metro areas. Houston's metro is 5.28million as of the July 1, 2005 Census estimate. Atlanta's metro is 4.91million as of the July 1, 2005 Census estimate. Atlanta did indeed grow faster in the year before that estimate, both in absolute and relative gains, but it would take quite a while to make up that lead. All of that was before Katrina. Jason

The Cotton Bowl got 6 games. Jason

Just as an FYI WesternGulf, 1.5 megabits is an incredible waste of bandwidth for a 90px by 90px image. Well that's part of the problem your image isn't 90pix square, it 22 times too large. However, even for the image size the lack JPG compression is a bit much. Jason