HAIF sister site for Dallas

[Trae]

Wow. Arlington likes to pretend that they are a big city, when it is really just an oversized bedroom-community.

[NThomas]

Wow. Arlington likes to pretend that they are a big city, when it is really just an oversized bedroom-community.

Arlington would be a bedroom community if you took out Six Flags over Texas, Six Flags Hurricane Harbor, Rangers Ballpark, Cowboys Stadium, GM's only SUV plant in North America, and UT-Arlington, other then those, yeah its just a bedroom community. The metroplex is so spread out that there are few traditional bedroom communities. Cities like Plano, Richardson, Irving, Arlington, etc. have more daytime employees then DT Forth Worth. McKinney and Allen are two traditional suburbs, not Arlington.

[missjanel]

Yes, but it won't be the same without The Niche.

Would any of you HAIFers participate in a Dallas/Fort Worth/North Texas forum?

[citizen4rmptown]

You're right that the other sites' fora haven't taken off. That's the reason they all redirect to the Agoraphoria site. It's a catch-all for my non-HAIF forum needs.

The reason I think a DSFWA forum might have a shot is because there are a number of North Texans who are active on HAIF. If I can convince those people to contribute to the new forum, they could be the seed of something great. With the other city fora I've started from scratch. I hope that if I pursue this plan, HAIFers will help kick start the Dallas/Fort Worth site.

Starting a forum properly (instead of just piggybacking on an existing site like Agoraphoria or going with some lame free hosting service) is something that takes time and money. I wouldn't launch until November at the earliest, in part because I have to put together $200 to license new forum software and I have a lot of other expenses coming up this fall.

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As an aside, since you brought up the other web sites -- you're entirely right -- the forum sections of those web sites have failed to thrive. The Chicago site did pretty well for about a year, but died when I merged it into Agoraphoria. Starting, running, and maintaining a forum isn't easy as evidenced by the former HAIF competitors that have gone out of business.

But interestingly, other forms of interaction are doing surprisingly well. For example, I don't promote any of the sites' Flickr groups, yet the London site has 89 members who contribute photos -- more than even the HAIF Flickr group, which does get some limited promotion. The London Flickr group has only been around for a few months.

Also, the Twitter feeds are remarkably popular for features that are not promoted.

And the Chicago Facebook page has 53 fans in three months, again with zero promotion; and the Chicago Blog has several thousand unique visitors each week, still with zero promotion.

I'm not sure what the lesson is here. Well, aside from the fact that I have far more properties than I have time to promote them.

Maybe the lesson is that the new forms of social media (Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, blogs) are more popular than the old forms (forums, etc...). I don't know.

Again, I'm still only just considering the North Texas site (trying hard not to call it a "Dallas" site). But if there are enough HAIFers who think it's a good idea, I might go for it.

How about it? Would any of you HAIFers participate in a Dallas/Fort Worth/North Texas forum?

You should cut your losses...but then if i had put half as much effort to create them, i wouldn't do away with them...

On the subject of participation, i'd look into the site.

[Trae]

Arlington would be a bedroom community if you took out Six Flags over Texas, Six Flags Hurricane Harbor, Rangers Ballpark, Cowboys Stadium, GM's only SUV plant in North America, and UT-Arlington, other then those, yeah its just a bedroom community. The metroplex is so spread out that there are few traditional bedroom communities. Cities like Plano, Richardson, Irving, Arlington, etc. have more daytime employees then DT Forth Worth. McKinney and Allen are two traditional suburbs, not Arlington.

I'll give you the GM Plant and UT-Arlington (which is a commuter campus by the way), but other than that, no. Arlington got suckered with the Rangers and especially Cowboys stadium. Hoping both would push them up to "big city" status. Six Flags? Hurricane Harbor? Nah. Now, I wouldn't call Plano, Irving, or Richardson bedroom communities. Both have a ton of companies and business districts. Arlington doesn't. I'd say Arlington is an overgrown Grand Prairie.

[TheNiche]

That said, if a site is created, all of the North Texas communities will be represented and respected. Those who don't will be sanctioned. There will be no inter-suburb feuds on DSFWA.com.

I'll give you the GM Plant and UT-Arlington (which is a commuter campus by the way), but other than that, no. Arlington got suckered with the Rangers and especially Cowboys stadium. Hoping both would push them up to "big city" status. Six Flags? Hurricane Harbor? Nah. Now, I wouldn't call Plano, Irving, or Richardson bedroom communities. Both have a ton of companies and business districts. Arlington doesn't. I'd say Arlington is an overgrown Grand Prairie.

I'm not saying that I disagree with Trae's comments. Objectively speaking, I think they're pretty well spot on. But...the truth is going to piss people off who live in or own property in Arlington or Grand Prairie. I'm not sure that inter-suburb flame wars can be prevented.

Houston is very lucky in a way, that we don't have very many hard boundaries that are widely recognized and understood. You can say that you live in Houston, and that could mean anything. You could say that you live in west, north, southeast, southwest Houston, and none of those cardinal directions necessarily communicate anything about you. If you start talking zip codes, nobody understands you. If you start talking neighborhoods, only folks on your side of town really have a good idea where you're talking about, and they don't really want to say anything bad to outsiders about their part of town (though, as an example, they may express concern to local populations over the lower-class neighborhoods of north Pasadena or north Katy if they're southies). Where you do have well-defined suburbs, they're master planned communities, and expectations are pretty uniform, with people seeming to choose between them based on where they work and whether they prefer pine trees or oak trees.

It's not to say that Houston is exempt from neighborhood-based snobbery, but it seems to mostly come from folks who believe that their political beliefs are superior and that like-minded people should live close to one another, segregating themselves from the general population as though the general population were going to convert them (and we all know that it can't work the other way around ).

[happytown]

I just went browsing over to Dallasmetropolis.com and I wasn't there for five minutes before I came across a condo project that was advertising itself as "the place to see and be seen". To me, that ad is a metaphor for what is wrong with Dallas. Far too many people up there seem to be into "image". In my opinion, you don't see near as much of that fakery in Houston.

It will be interesting to see whether the younger generation in Dallas move away from that attitude.

[DefenDallas]

..."the place to see and be seen". To me, that ad is a metaphor for what is wrong with Dallas. Far too many people up there seem to be into "image". In my opinion, you don't see near as much of that fakery in Houston.

It will be interesting to see whether the younger generation in Dallas move away from that attitude.

pfffft. In MY opinion, you shouldn't use clichéd marketing slogans as metaphors for the collective attitude of a city's people. I consider myself a member of the younger Dallas generation and I have been working to dismantle that misconception for a while now. I'll continue to do so with a positive contribution to this board, which is admittedly superior to the DFWUrban forum, and I pledge not to drag threads into "flame war" status.

That being said, add a DAIF site, or DFWAIF, or NTAIF (if you don't want to exclude all the many fiefdoms that constitute the North Texas region, they can get cranky when the whole area is referred to as Dallas). I would contribute.

[Coaster]

I think any forum dedicated to Dallas architecture should be called DAFF.

[Zephyr]

I think any forum dedicated to Dallas architecture should be called DAFF.

While it isn't an architecture-base site, www.dallasdigest.com has been my favorite here in the metroplex for several years. It's hosted by Dallas radio personality Kevin McCarthy who is heard on Saturday mornings in Houston on KTRH as the co-host of The CarGuy Show with Jerry Reynolds.

The site consists mostly of people who grew up in the DFW area, plus a few Houston ex-pats like myself, and other members from as far away as the UK. Most of the conversations are humorous with a few political arguments and bare-knuckle fistfights thrown in, but I've enjoyed it over the years, as well as the get-togethers and happy hours we occasionally have.

One problem is that spammers have found the site and Kevin requests that new members email him before joining. That way he can open the gates while newcomers join, then close them to keep out the spammers.

Please look around and think about joining. I need a few more hometowners there.