Southern Californian family looking to move near Dallas, Texas.?

dallas is reallllll boring and slow its to hot and humid there the only thing thats fun is the tornado watches and thunder storms it bad to raise kids there theres alot of mayates there no mexicans so you should stay in southern cali people dream of being there so why leave unless your broke

Yes, it is very hot here in summer. You may never get used to that coming from southern Ca. and I'm sure you'll miss the beach as well.

In my opinion Plano is the nicest Dallas suburb.

You'll find it has beautiful neighborhoods, many houses have pools that are used in summer in spite of the heat, the schools are superior, it's a family oriented place, with a lot of parks, some for people and some for dogs, shopping galore, great restaurants, gyms and a lot of churches. In Plano you'll want to stay west of Interstate 75 -- east of 75 is the older part of town.

Other nice suburbs are Frisco and Flower Mound.

Richardson has seen it's better days.

Places of entertainment are spread out throughout the Metroplex. Professional basketball & hockey are played in Dallas. The professional football team will be in Irving 1 more year before moving to the new stadium in Arlington. The professional baseball team plays in Arlington. Frisco & Grand Prairie both have minor league baseball teams. Grand Prairie has horse racing. Fort Worth has NASCAR. Arlington has Six Flags Over Texas and Hurricane Harbor. Dallas and FW both have several museums. Dallas has an aquarium at Fair Park. There are 4 lakes in the Metroplex for water sports (sorry no surfing) and many others less than 1 1/2 hours from Dallas. Grapevine Lake in Grapevine is very crowded and not very scenic. Lake Lewisville in Lewisville is considered the most dangerous lake in the state. Lake Ray Hubbard in Garland is great for sailing, but swimming isn't allowed. Joe Pool Lake, which can be reached from Cedar Hill on the east has rolling hills and is very scenic. The west side from Grand Prairie is flat, but has cabins, playground, a swimming area, and pavillions. Dallas & FW both have zoos, although I prefer the one in FW.

If you can get past the Texas weather you may like it here. The cost of living in the Metroplex is one of the lowest in the nation. And traffic can't be any worse than in Ca.

We moved from Southern California last year, and LOVE it here! You definitely want to live in the northern suburbs: extremely low crime, EXCELLENT schools, family-oriented neighborhoods, beautiful houses (1/2 the price and 10x the quality). Plano & Frisco are larger cities (more like Irvine) with a wider range of housing prices; McKinney (150,000) and Allen (50,000) (similar to Orange) are older areas, with some beautiful new homes, and a small-town feel, but still smaller yards. Fairview (3000) and Lucas (5000) (similar to Villa Park in OC) have much larger lots, and gorgeous homes..... All of these cities have neighborhood & city activities for kids; waterparks, parks, etc. There is fantastic shopping & restaurants, and you're still only 25-35 min. from downtown Dallas..... You will be SO amazed that there is NO graffiti anywhere!...or homeless people at the freeways...or drive-by shootings...and English is the primary language! ...It's not any hotter than it is in So.Cal (unless you lived right on the beach); the only difference is that the hot part of the day is later in the afternoon, and it cools down later at night (the sun also sets later here). Right now it's humid, but it's also chance of rain:)- and So.Cal. seemed alot more humid the last few years too.....The temps in the McKinney area do seem to be a little cooler than in Dallas, though..... WELCOME!

TX2Step provided a nice answer. Here's my two cents:

The suburbs of Dallas are a great place to live and raise a family. You have some extremely good school districts - Plano and Coppell are exemplary and I hear good things about Frisco ISD too. There are nice malls, a wide variety of restaurants, movies theaters, parks/water parks in pretty much every suburb. You'll love it that stuff costs a lot less here than Socal.

The Northern suburbs of Plano/Allen/Frisco/McKinney are especially nice. You will find newer houses here and you'll be pleasantly surprised at their prices. These suburbs and others such as Lewisville, Coppell, Irving, Grapevine, Arlington etc. also have a good ethnic mixture.

Every neighborhood has a good set of grocery stores (atleast 3) to choose from. So unlike the Northeast, you are not restricted to ONE grocery store for, like half the city. This means that these stores are better maintained and cleaner. You wont have to go more than a couple of miles from your home for household items.

Some people complain about the heat but I'd take 4 months of 90-100 F over 4 months of ice, snow and sub-zero temperatures.

The highway system is great and long distances dont seem like such a big deal to Texans. You may have to fight traffic depending on where you work. Some parts of the city are better connected by public transportation than others. For e.g, Irving has bus service as well as train service to Downtown Dallas and Ft. Worth. Plano has train service to Downtown Dallas but the other northern suburbs such as Allen, Frisco, McKinney arent so well served by public transportation. I think public transportation is one of the weak links of a sprawling metropolis such as Dallas. But on the flip side, the highway system is exemplary.

As for crime, if you stick to any of the suburbs mentioned in this post, you'll do fine. There may random acts of juvenile crime committed by teens during the Summer months but by and large the outer areas are a lot safer than say downtown or areas within a 5-10 mile radius of the downtown.

You'll find the Texans to be a very warm people and they'll welcome you with open arms.

All in all, a great place live and raise kids. Two thumbs up to Dallas.

The best place to live in Dallas is really subjective. When we moved here, we looked up in Plano and Frisco because it was so popular. There is lots of great shopping there, of course. The main things people do here are eat out and shop. Well, we went to Frisco and saw that it was nothing but a sea of houses, so we decided to look elsewhere. Mckinney and Allen are growing fast. Richardson is an older developement and not as nice, at least that's what I remember. I haven't been up there in a while. There are lots of places to choose from. It depends how far you want to commute.

Yes, it gets very hot here and lots of people have pools and they use them all summer or else they hole up in their houses or at the mall because it can get unbearable in August and September.

I was born and raised in the Dallas area, mostly Plano area. I went to Plano East and graduated. If you want your kids to have alot of opportunity, Plano is the place to go. Alot of my friends went on to college with scholarships and Plano East has one of the best football teams in the state. The housing is affordable, the schools are good, not much public transportation though, you basically need to a car to get anywhere, and the heat definitely sucks. But with A/C its not too bad I guess. Plus something we have that Southern California doesn't have is the best Tex-Mex food around! Alot of diversity in Plano, a good mix of people.

i live in Arlington,its between Dallas and ft.worth.we have a six flags hurricane harbor water park,Texas rangers and soon the cowboys.Plano and Richardson both are great places for a family.its clean,nice houses and good schools.its about 10min north of Dallas.it does however get hot especially if your not use to it.highs around100 lows in the upper 80s all summer with high humidity.

hope this helped.good luck

The affluent areas here are Southlake, West Plano and Las Colinas. You can find some really nice homes in Highland Park also. I think the average home there is $400,000 and up though. West Plano has a really nice, new area and Southlake means "money" here....

The pool will come in handy here. I would also suggest you consider Frisco based on the criteria in your question. Very nice, upscale suburbs, malls, entertainment. Very SoCal. I moved from San Diego in 2006 and enjoy it here - except for the weather. But you learn to live with it. The people are actually friendly here. Welcome!

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