According to Money magazine:
http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/10...a-2010-edition
We were there a few weeks ago on a Saturday night and were totally blown away by the amount of activity, live music, restaurants with full patios, etc. Nothing cutting edge but I honestly think there was more going on there than in non-arts district downtown Dallas.
When was the last time you were in downtown Dallas? Ten years ago?Originally Posted by sdub
5:45pm, today.
Have you ever been to downtown McKinney? Are you going to assume this is hyperbole because it doesn't agree with your preconceptions?
Of course it's hyperbole.
I answered your question. Why don't you return the courtesy.
In my mind, I was comparing what I saw to what I have seen in the core Main Street area and the West End later in the evening. This doesn’t account for any of the nightclubs or hotel related business. I avoid the clubs and the hotels hide most of their activity from the street, so it is tough for me to have a frame of reference. In McKinney on one warm Friday night between 8:30 and 10pm, there were at least four live bands, a dozen packed patios, another half-dozen busy restaurants without patios and some kind of performance going on at the old courthouse. Certainly not more economic activity than all of downtown Dallas and probably lower sales tax revenue than just the areas I mentioned. There was definitely more of the feeling of urbanity, of people being comfortable out in public, together, enjoying themselves. It’s a subjective experience, so you might not have shared it had you been there.
My point here is twofold. First, you can have a sufficiently urbane, if not actually urban, experience in many places throughout the metroplex. I do think people desire that experience more than they have in the past few years. It does not mean that those same people will automatically flow back to central Dallas in search of it. Second, the scale of downtown Dallas works against it. There are few districts within downtown that are easily recognizable to visitors. The only one with a uniformly positive identity is the Arts District. The West End has maybe the next strongest identity. It is easily three times larger than downtown McKinney. From there, it goes downhill. The scale that works to create this environment is tiny by comparison. I would imagine that politics make concentrating resources that tightly very difficult, if not impossible.
Anyway, McKinney does deserve recognition for what they’ve done there.
I was told that at build out McKinney will have 400,000+ residents, and approximately 120 sq miles.
Tighten the female dog!
I hope municipal leaders in McKinney see the beauty of establishing an urban/suburban expansion boundary north and west of town. Keeping the NW quadrant of Collin County (and NE quadrant of Denton County) rural is vital to the long term quality of life for everyone in Collin County....
I think that is going to happen if they don't expand their airport to include long haul commercial flights. Most larger corporations won't locate farther than 45 minutes from the airport. McKinney is right at that limit. Most workers won't locate more than 30 minutes from their office. So I don't see people (seeking suburban living) moving farther than 30 minutes north of McKinney.
However, McKinney could transform their airport to something like the ones in the LA area like Ontario or Burbank. If that happens, I see larger companies locating in the McKinney area, driving the sprawl further out. I guess this will happen if we expect DFW to top 10 million in population.
Here's the Collin Regional future (conceptual) layout plan (*.pdf link). . .
http://www3.mckinneytexas.org/www/up...20Ultimate.pdf
There's some stuff in this thread that speaks of numbers near that as well:
http://forum.dallasmetropolis.com/showthread.php?t=2093
When is said build out expected?
Here's the data for past growth: http://www.nctcog.org/ris/demographics/population.asp
^NCTCOG projections generated from 2000 data had McK at 105,000 by 2010 and 226,000 by 2030; recently compiled 2009 estimates put McK at 126,000.
Personally, I do not expect McKinney will encounter a majority of satellite city growth conditions as we've seen with cities like Frisco, South lake, Plano etc.
McKinney is just the new suburb for the people who work in Frisco, Plano, Richardson, etc.
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