sick of it

[pariah]

i am so tired of the same old strip centers, the so old tired retail developements, we only need so many designeer coffee shops, and donut shops etc. mmmmm donuts. its sad to say, that the state of the metroplex and its ever expansion northward, will not change any time soon. the reason thread about the crown jewel of this movement, frisco, only further disgusts me. there is absolutely nothing special about frisco, and i mean nothing. it is a clone, in everyway. puke. but like i said its not going to change, until the ideals of the DFW population change. i ask people everyday, why live out there, i get the same tired answers, less traffic(thats a laugh), better schools(doesn't have to be so, the teachers are not better there than here), more space(sure, have you seen the cookie cutter neighborhoods out there, please), less crime(proportionally?, besides crime/evil knows no boundary), i love DFW i just hope it does not become LA, if i wanted LA, i would move out there and put up with 3 times the cost of living. anyway my rant is over.

[UrbanLandscape]

AMEN!

[crescentboi]

I must highly agree with you about Frisco, but also anywhere in the Northern areas that are booming. McKinney looks like Frisco, The Colony(oh God!) looks like Colleyville and so on. I also don't understand the mentality up there. There's absolutely no sense of culture or activity. At midnight on a weekend, you go up by Stonebriar and all that people are doing is driving around, and teenagers are showing off their flashy cars that they didn't even buy! sorry for ranting, I just hate that area!

[Columbus Civil]

One thing mentioned is true - DISD is absolutely horrible.

[sundancing away]

AMEN!! I hate Plano/Frisco...they just steal what we have. And yeah...our schools are bad, not the public ones particulary, but the private ones, some at least, rank top in the nation!

[pariah]

well i look at it like this, as i know a great many teachers from disd, how about we pull a swap, bring an entire set of teachers from one school in the suburbs, and exchange them for a set of teachers from a comparable school in disd, give em a year, and see if student performance improves any, i am sure the school board has its quirks, the admin has been up and down, but you will find this all over, this may be more of a moral issue, but give the teachers of disd some students that want to learn, and that respect them even a little, kids with any kind of productive up bringing and see what happens. kind of a hot topic, but simply true.

[Columbus Civil]

pariah, I don't disagree with anything you wrote. The defection of a lot of Dallas's "can do" type folks to Plano, Frisco, etc. is a big reason that DISD is in bad shape.

[GarrettCarey]

Don't get me started on this one!

[longhornfan]

I hate to say it but we are becoming LA very quickly. The metro area will stretch to the Red River before we all know it. It's funny to see the huge growth in the area since I was a kid. I grew up in Arlington and back then it seemed like Grapevine and Colleyville were "the country".

With the continued emphasis on suburban growth and failure of big retailers to get on board in the CBD, my hope of a great downtown is waning. The sad part is every time I am downtown I see the huge potential. I go to Chicago and NYC and say why can't we have something event remotely similar.

I hate to say it but I am beginning to feel like the vast majority of people just don't care. They are much happier in living in their cookie cutter homes shopping at their cookie cutter strip centers. Frankly, it's depressing.

[Knight22]

Yes suburban growth will of course continue. As long as there are families that are in search of good schools and cheap housing, of course there will be suburban growth. As far as people's opinions, you cannot change that, if a family decides to move to Frisco because it is cheaper than buying a house in Dallas you cannot blame them. It also doesn't help that Dallas is in the middle of a prarie, run out of affordable land? well there is plenty more. Even if you improved Dallas schools I still doubt that would cause a huge influx of population in the inner city. The idea of having a house with a lawn and a two or three car garage is still very attrative to many families. Why buy a town home when you can buy a house twice or three times a big for a lesser price? I am going to assume (and I could be very wrong) that most people on this board are bachelors or married couples without kids. Now do I think it is fair that suburbs give tax incentives to corporations? of course not.

Now having siad that, what can we do? All we can do is try to make Dallas as an attrative and exciting place to
live. We can also try to indirectly lur people to the city by reclocating more jobs closer and into downtown. This will take legal help because it is terribly unfair how suburbs can give tax breaks to companies. A few things that may help Dallas are current demographic trends. More aging baby boomers are moving closer into the city, into more condos and townhomes and their buying power is incredible. I am 23 years old and in grad school, do you know how many of my close friends are married or engaged? none. It seems to me, and I am not sure, that the trend these days is to get married later. Let's face it, what bachelor wants to live in Frisco? or some other faceless suburb. None that I know of. These are just some ideas but as long as there is the family that yearns for the house with the lush green yard and yadda yadda yadda, you can forget about trying to control suburban growth.

[GarrettCarey]

i hate to admit it.....but Knight22 is right.

I think perhaps one day it could change......slightly.....of course that would require school improvements, improved mass transit, lower crime rates, and more jobs in downtown, etc, etc

[metrosteve]

I agree with most everything said here on this subject. For over 20 years I lived in Dallas in the old Oaklawn, Turtle Creek section. I have, for the past 4 years lived in Coppell working in this area with a job I took. I am at heart an urban dweller and when not in the city, I love the country and I don't mean the suburbs. That having been said, I am glad for this experience of living out here because it has opened my eyes into the real ways people so closely tied to one another (that is, urban dweller and suburbanite) can see things so differently--and most of all, how the interelationship itself seems to be not recognized by either.

As someone said, as long as people want their green yards, endless shopping strips and schools they feel are safe for their children which they beleive affords so-called 'quality education' the majority of them will move to suburban areas and I for one, am convinced there is no real stopping them.

For those who love the excitement and variety of life options and culture that cities provide , the suburbs at their very best are bland, boring places that for all their pretense at great "lifestyle options" really afford very little choice and even less imagination. Lives lived out here tend to be, (unless you have children) VERY closed off to other people. Keeping up with your neighbors in terms of everything material you can imagine is paramount. People are conservative, (politicially and socially) and though I have met many lovely people who are articulate and intelligent their failure to contribute to Dallas in particular I find most annoying. It is always perceived in negative terms as a place we are all "lucky" to be out of. It really is, for most of them, a mythical place that has no relevance or connection to them or their lives in ANY way shape or form. Believe me, they don't think their missing anything by not living in Dallas. I don't get this attitude at all! It is selfish, self-absorbed and really quite destructive. The suburban mindset seems to me to be one of "getting away with it."--that is, "We've escaped the crime, the taxes, the minorities, the liberals, the gays and the horrible schools and we're never going back!" Though some see the need for mass transit (witness the new Denton County Transit Authority) more do not yet, even though traffic out here is horrible.

The "reality" for most, I believe out here, is what do we need Dallas for? If you can work out here, have schools and universities, recreational, shopping and entertainment AND transportation (as in DFW) plus all the churches, synagogues and mosques you could ever imagine why would you want the city? And of course, meanwhile in Dallas the discord and disconnect that the remaining citizens who are fighting valliantly on all fronts must face rampages on. Somehow, we must get good people who care, to stay in Dallas, return to Dallas (such as I am preparing to do) and move to Dallas from other areas and bring their talents and knowledge our way. I am very positive that if we don't give up the fight, Dallas will indeed be the kind of place we're all always hoping for and trying to bring about. But in the end, I would love to see the two factions join hands in the areas that affect us all--transportation, environment, recreation, the arts, etc. So much is being wasted here in time, money and sprawl. We can't force everybody back to Dallas, but maybe over time, we will be able to entice many more to give this wonderul city another or in some cases, a first try.
Sorry for the ramble--these are just my thoughts from having lived and worked in both places over time. I don't hate suburbs per se, I just love cities and variety more.

[psukhudallasmetropolis]

I think urban Dallas will do well over the next ten years, while the northern suburbs may not grow as much as they did in the 1990s. Dallas is still gaining population on par with frisco. The Dallas growth is not sprawl like out there, but rather renewal. Remember, Dallas will always be in the center. (most trains and highways lead to downtown)

www.dfwinfo.com/ris/population/top10.gif (http://www.dfwinfo.com/ris/population/top10.gif)


Why did the northern suburbs boom? The 1990s Tech sector? Highway improvements like the tollway and 75?

The George Bush Turnpike will make it's way around to Mesquite then down and back to the west. That should really help those areas to boom. Kaufman seems far away now, but I won't be shocked when they start to have massive growth.

I agree with the fact that people waiting to have kids later in life. That will make an impact over the next ten years. Imagine DISD gaining tax dollars, but not new students... Also, new townhouses for less than $250K are helping the inner city renewal.