Dallas/Fort Worth

[trailerkid]

OK...let's get this straight.

Fort Worth has its own zoo. It's own suburbs. It's own malls. It's own downtown. It's own museums. It's own touristy districts. It's own concert venues. It's own opera hall. It's own newspaper. It's own TV station (5). It is literally another city that sits next to Dallas. It is not like Johnson County or even St. Paul, Minnesota. It's like a 50 minute drive from SW Fort Worth to Dallas (the equivalent of driving from Topeka to Kansas City).

The Stockyards didn't even have a hotel or a building over 2 stories. It's similar in size to the West Bottoms or the River Market.

[Thrillcekr]

OK...let's get this straight.

Fort Worth has its own zoo. It's own suburbs. It's own malls. It's own downtown. It's own museums. It's own touristy districts. It's own concert venues. It's own opera hall. It's own newspaper. It's own TV station (5). It is literally another city that sits next to Dallas. It is not like Johnson County or even St. Paul, Minnesota. It's like a 50 minute drive from SW Fort Worth to Dallas (the equivalent of driving from Topeka to Kansas City).

The Stockyards didn't even have a hotel or a building over 2 stories. It's similar in size to the West Bottoms or the River Market.

Again, that's a gross exaggeration because it doesn't take near that long to drive from most parts of Dallas to Ft. Worth. I know because I've been there and done it numerous times. Even if it was the truth you still couldn't compare it to Topeka because Dallas has over a million people and Topeka does not. We're not even throwing in all the Dallas burbs in the mix here and Topeka isn't even as big as a lot of those.

I found this information on Billy Bob's and it pretty much says it all.

JANUARY

Every Weekend - CONCERT - Fort Worth: Billy Bob's Texas. Billy Bob's features the biggest names in country music and sometimes rock every weekend at the World's Largest Honky Tonk. Fun for the entire family. Location: 2520 Rodeo Plaza Fort Worth, Texas 76106. Region: Texas Prairies and Lakes. Average attendance: 250,000 - 500,000. For more information, call 817-624-7117. Please mention this listing when inquiring.

That's one month right there so I assume they even have concerts outside the bar on the grounds which I never saw during the times I visited. That is one bar alone that nearly outdoes the entire Plaza all by itself. That doesn't even count the other 37 hotels, shops, restaraunts, and clubs etc.. that make up the Stockyards.

[Tosspot]

Pardon my snobbery, but I'd think twice about patronizing anyplace called "Billy Bob's."

[Thrillcekr]

Pardon my snobbery, but I'd think twice about patronizing anyplace called "Billy Bob's."

Normally I would too but it's like trying food that sounds gross. Sometimes if you just suck it up and give it a try it turns out to be pretty good. In the case of Billy Bob's that's what I did and it turned out to be pretty cool. It's kind of funny when you think of it like this. If you are afraid or against being around anything outside of what you are accustomed to then wouldn't that also make you a redneck? The person that I went there with the first time presented that argument and I couldn't dispute it. He was right and he was right about it being a fun place.

[chrizow]

i am willing to bet that i would get my ass kicked at any place called billy bob's.

i'd really like to check out dallas (and the new art museum in fort worth.) i've heard and read that downtown fort worth is busy and fun, but it doesn't really sound like anything i would personally like. i have a feeling that i am a dallas person and not a FW person.

[Thrillcekr]

i am willing to bet that i would get my ass kicked at any place called billy bob's.

i'd really like to check out dallas (and the new art museum in fort worth.) i've heard and read that downtown fort worth is busy and fun, but it doesn't really sound like anything i would personally like. i have a feeling that i am a dallas person and not a FW person.

Just do your best not to pass judgement on the place before you have even been. I know that is hard and Ã

[chrizow]

i am not stereotyping FW. i am just saying that a huge club called Billy Bob's isn't likely to meet my needs. haha. i am sure FW is fine. i guess i might be buying into the stereotype that Dallas is more chic and trendy than FW, but i am also 99% sure that stereotype is completely true. haha.

[Thrillcekr]

i am not stereotyping FW. i am just saying that a huge club called Billy Bob's isn't likely to meet my needs. haha. i am sure FW is fine. i guess i might be buying into the stereotype that Dallas is more chic and trendy than FW, but i am also 99% sure that stereotype is completely true. haha.

You'll find if you go down there that Dallas and FW aren't much different from one another. Dallas is just bigger.

[rxlexi]

 So I'm reviving an old thread with a way too long Dallas trip report.  A very strange city indeed.  I think the often used term "metroplex" describes the area better.  I also think I like Dallas, or at least respect what they've done with city in recent years.  Just a really weird, but huge and shiny, place.

 My first stop was the new Windspear Opera House and tour of the Arts District.  The district itself is perhaps a little hodge-podge, but hugely impressive.  I loved the Windspear and it's incredibly sexy blood-red shell, would love to (and will) make it down to an opera in this facility.  Hoping (and expecting) the Kauffman PAC to equal or better in terms of sexiness.

 The Arts District consists of the Windspear, the Dallas Museum of Art (in a building designed in 1984-nowhere near the size or grandeur of the Nelson, even pre-expansion), the Nasher Sculpture Center (an incredibly beautiful minimalist building by Renzo Piano with a MASSIVE out sculpture park sprawling out behind it), the Meyerson Symphony Center (I.M. Pei), the Wily Theater (gorgeous brand new flex-space theater across from Windspear), and the Crow Asian Art collection, as well as a couple of arts related educational facilities and a spectacular new high-rise condo tower going up (Museumtower.com).  

 They did a nice job with the clean, modern streetscape, creating a central spine along Flora street but leaving it, and cross streets, completely open to downtown traffic.  The freeway lid park directly next door should be spectacular as well.  I was impressed.  I like the idea of locating these cultural attractions together, but it does give this area something of a contrived feeling, like, we have to have some art, and here's we put it.

 Downtown Dallas has some large, flashy and rather cool skyscrapers (a great skyline, IMO), and a few really neat sights, but outside of the West End (think Omaha's Old Market) is largely devoid of life or vibrance.  You can tell there have been some attempts, and they do have a few really nice looking condo towers and old hotel and oil buildings, but it is definitely a relatively quiet place.  Super-jealous of the some of the big glass scrapers though, and I hate to say it.

 Near DT, Deep Ellum was pretty cool.  Think Xroads, with much less art + design, and much, much more clubbing.  Many bars, some interesting restaurants, shops, a great coffeshop (Murray St) etc.  A lot of pretty old brick low-rise buildings seeing new life as lofts, etc.  A cool area, and much better than I expected.  Much more on par with something you would find in a mid-sze city than a really developed loft district.  Lots of surface parking.  Interestingly, some large new apartment complexes were built in/near Deep Ellum, right in the shadow of the hideous and massive elevated freeway, and there was even a large dog park beneath said freeway - clearly a great way to utilize the space and a suprisingly popular area.

 Fair Park - the site of the Texas Centennial Fair in the late 30's and the current site of the Texas State Fair and Cotton Bowl- a creepy and incredibly cool place.  Basically a massive Art Deco world's fair site, complete with huge water basin, giant Texas Star ferris wheel and empty amusement midway.  Some real Art Deco gems - research if interested.  Located in a really rough looking area but totally worth the stop if into history or deco architecture, and the side of the park nearest DT (Fair Park is maybe 3-4 miles away ?) bleeds into Deep Ellum, with some great looking commercial storefronts and lofts...could be a very cool area (complete with DART stop) someday.

 The "big and new" impressiveness continued throughout the new Victory District and Uptown Dallas, neighborhoods that are largely new, largely suburban, and largely...large.  Massive new condo towers everywhere, the badass W Hotel Dallas, the Ritz-Carlton and Residences Dallas - one of the more impressive new hotels I've ever seen.  There is very little attention paid to the maintenance of a consistent, or even attractive, aesthetic, with huge fast roads coursing between sprawling sun-belt style towers.  Corporate Woods in the city, with a lot of retail.  But the scale and energy in these areas is impressive.  Uptown has a good sized shopping district called West Village that is essentially like a truly urban Zona Rosa - new construction, new urbanism, higher-end shops, a real-live streetcar milling down McKinney Ave, tons of apartments (this was a trend in Dallas-TONS and TONS of relatively new apartments throughout the central urban areas-think Fountain Place as the median).  

 The sense of place and quality of construction seemed all across the board - some truly gorgeous n/c that I would kill for here, some terribly tacky faux-historical design and everything in between.  The West Village and McKinney Ave parts of Uptown were incredibly vibrant though, and obviously have been successful in reinventing the area.  Uptown sits right across the freeway from the Arts District and DT Dallas, and it has clearly seen the focus of Dallas's (sp?) urban energy.  

 Highland Park/Park Cities- swanky, gorgeous neighborhoods a la Mission Hills, on a larger scale.  Many, many attractive older homes throughout central Dallas, a surprise.  Also many hideous McMansions and tear-downs, not a surprise.  Highland Park Village a kind of uber-mini Plaza, with super-high-end shops.  Very much like Tulsa's Utica Square, or a micro Praire Village, in design, with shopping on an entirely different level, probably beyond most anything in KC.  It is very small though, and compltely auto-centric, centered around a parking a lot.  Not at all like the Plaza in design or scale.  But nice in that fancy Dallas way, and it contains the original Mi Cocina, making me miss our Plaza location - it's still really popular in Dallas.

 Other Dallas 'hoods - I explored around Greenville Ave and "M Streets", some older urban residential neighborhoods, kind of like a little bit rougher, totally flat Brookside with traffic.  Very nice homes, seemed immenently livable, even desirable.  Greenville Ave has a ton of cool shops, bars, etc.

 The rest of Big D - about what you would expect.  Massive freeways, huge (just huge!!) glass towers off of interchanges, more chain stores than I have ever, ever come close to seeing before, all stand alone surrounded by parking.  Malls with ice skating rinks and fancy, very valuable  art collections (Galleria and North Park Center).  We hit a suburban bar that looked like something off Metcalf with valet parking where they just take your car to the back of the lot so you don't have to walk.  The feeling of "new money" everywhere.  The feeling that leaving a car for any purpose other than entering an air-conditioned office-park or large suburban home might be one of the more horrible sounding things a Dallas-ite could hear. Terrible, terrible traffic, thought maybe not relative to other 4-5M+ metros.  Really NICE highways!  A DART LRT that is constantly expanding and looks solid (jealous).  Suburban baseball in the Texas heat.  The Dallas Cowboys and a billion dollar football stadium surrounded by stand-alone chain shops and tacky hotels.  

 You get the feeling the actual "cool" parts of Dallas city are probably comparitively sized to KC.  Dallas's DT is much larger (again, that glittering neon skyline with the light-up ball!), but not necessarily much more lively.  Some great restaurants.  A lot of bars, maybe not that many great ones.  Not pretty, not charming.  That is until I left...and then that size and energy became infectious - all of that growth, and some rather large metro resources (the DFW metroplex is one of the largest in the country) GET A LOT OF STUFF DONE (in capital letters).  

 If that region were to have focused around the central core, it might be another Chicago.  As it stands, the city itself is far more similar to KC or even OKC (certainly in layout and architecture to OKC), though the scale of some of the newest contruction blows away anything in the smaller metros (up to 3M).  A strange and fun place, like I said, the ultimate, super-duper uber-version of OKC...which I find to be quite enjoyable, if not at all a place I would prefer to live.  Makes you appreciate KC's charm, natural beauty, architecture and culture ( ).  Makes you hate our lack of balls and big buildings.  I'll be back!

[Highlander]

While I am not a great fan of Dallas, it is far and above my favorite urban center in Texas.  I'd much rather be in Dallas than in Houston (perhaps the worst city in the US in which to live) and it beats San Antonio all to hell and back.   

[chingon]

El Paso/Juarez for my money. For all its myriad flaws, its the only Texas city I think is even interesting. And it is pretty endlessly fascinating, in the way that all border-culture cities are.

I think Houston is my second favorite city in Texas because it is incomprehensible to me that 4 million people on earth could be so wrong in such a concentrated way.

[chrizow]

interesting report!  i enjoyed it.  i've always wanted to check out TX cities. 

i have always felt/heard that houston is supposedly the more hip city (b/w dallas and houston).  good arts and music scene, good restaurants, and the lack of zoning in the city apparently makes for some interesting neighborhood mashups (think 20 shotgun shacks, next to some new townhouses, next to some industrial warehouses). 

i'd love to check out dallas and houston.  also want to go back to austin, as ive only been once and really enjoyed it.  the TX cities aren't too high on my list though - i.e. i still haven't been to any east coast city other than NYC.

[LenexatoKCMO]

i have always felt/heard that houston is supposedly the more hip city (b/w dallas and houston). 

If by "hip" you mean hot, humid, ugly, car-centric shithole. 

[chrizow]

If by "hip" you mean hot, humid, ugly, car-centric shithole. 

i dunno, i've seen some photos taken from their art crawl and some other arty events, and i think that parts of the urban core have a certain charm to it.  some of the photos could have been taken in our own Xroads, but with more of a "southern" feel.  i'd like to check it out - like KC, i am sure these areas are less than 1% of the metro, but have merit. 

[Highlander]

i dunno, i've seen some photos taken from their art crawl and some other arty events, and i think that parts of the urban core have a certain charm to it.  some of the photos could have been taken in our own Xroads, but with more of a "southern" feel.  i'd like to check it out - like KC, i am sure these areas are less than 1% of the metro, but have merit.  

I suspect you are talking about the area known as the Heights.  A lot of young people I work with live there and it's a hip place I guess but if it's even a half of 1% of the metro, I'd be surprised.  Montrose and the area around Rice are kind of nice too but, hey, I don't have 800 grand to spend on a 2000 square foot or less house.  Even in these places, there is nothing as walkable as the crossroads, plaza or wesport.  Only Rice Village comes close.  On the other hand, Sugarland town center is one of the better examples of new urbanism that I have seen.  I wanted to live there but it was too far from my office.  

For the most part, Houston is the most autocentric city I have ever lived in or visited.  You are lost without an auto here.  The ugliness of the city can really get to me too, even the nice areas of town are kind of ugly.  Kind of a boomtown mentally of anything goes here; and what goes is usually another strip mall that goes defunct in a year or two or a shoddy apartmenti n the middle of 450,000$ homes that goes section 8 and keeps the ghettofication process in full swing.  If you ever come here, make sure your insurance will pay for wrecks with uninsured motorists because it's a major problem in the city.  Even though there are some hip places, I have never been to a city where almost every one I meet, the young included, wishes they were living somewhere else.  

[rxlexi]

  hmm, I'm happy my trip report is generating some discussion about Texas cities...I find them to be rather fascinating.  Beyond the fact that the state is clearly doing something right (take a look at the job and population growth numbers, the # of F500 HQs, the success of the major universities), the cities are both terribly sprawling and somewhat ugly, and yet very dynamic with a surprisingly high quality of life (I'll speak for Dallas and Austin, or what I know of them, here).  It's an interesting conundrum.

  Young people seem to be flocking to these places (certainly Austin), and even if urban Dallas isn't much larger and more impressive than say a KC or Minneapolis (outside of skyline and Uptown - which pretty much just reminds me of newer, much flashier DT Clayton, MO), it offers a small chunk of their charm (some older neighborhoods, relatively cheap, fairly laid-back) with the amenties of a 5M metro (ultra high-end shopping, non-stop flights across the world, 4 pro sports, world-class cultural facilites, a growing LRT and commuter rail system).  And yet that metro is just hideously sprawling and full of chains (seemed very low on charming mom and pops for the size, probably even for city of our size), lacks any sort of cohesive or historic old urban core "city" and everyone drives everywhere. 

  Just an interesting set of qualities.  And I really do like Dallas, for the record.  I was blown away by the number of charming older homes (low expectations I think) and the relative inexpensiveness of the metro, the potential in their DT and Arts District, the dynamism of a fast growing and confident place.  And yet, the flip side of the coin is that DFW is also hot, flat, and just insanely, inefficiently sprawly, ugly and obnoxious in the most suburban way. 

  Would love to visit Houston (never been), and I have to get back to Austin soon too...
 

[Highlander]

  hmm, I'm happy my trip report is generating some discussion about Texas cities...I find them to be rather fascinating.  Beyond the fact that the state is clearly doing something right (take a look at the job and population growth numbers, the # of F500 HQs, the success of the major universities), the cities are both terribly sprawling and somewhat ugly, and yet very dynamic with a surprisingly high quality of life (I'll speak for Dallas and Austin, or what I know of them, here).  It's an interesting conundrum.

It's also warm (except for this year), without the harsh social backwardness of the deep south* and there is plenty of space which translates into plenty of inexpensive housing. 

*although even the nicest suburbs in Houston and Dallas can be astonishingly redneck in attitude.

I do not understand the success of Texas.  If you were to poll people around the US about their reluctance to move to a place like Kansas City, you would find that all the supposed issues they had with KC would be multiplied 10-fold in any major Texas city. If you to ask any of the young professionals in my office if they would be in Houston if there was a viable job opportunity elsewhere, they would all say hell no.  As far as Houston is concerned, it lives off the energy industry and if you do what I do, there are very few other opportunities in the US outisde of Houston.  The industry attracts a lot of high income people and that alone fosters a lot of other industry.  NASA being in Houston (an LBJ victory) helps too. 

[dangerboy]

Thanks for the great summary of Dallas.  Yet I still have zero desire to visit any place in Texas outside of Austin.

[jdubwaldo]

  I lived in Dallas for 4 months while training for work.  As described, there are some really wonderful pockets.  To me though, it is  so sprawling and suburban, it's felt to me like a huge Overland Park with about 10 times the people.

[warwickland]

Thanks for taking the time to recount your impressions. Thats probably one of the more interesting city trip reports ive read for a while, if for anything I know NOTHING about The Metroplex, and i've read no impressions really of it. Very good.