ok, So heres my opinion. I have lived my whole life in Texas and love it. Wouldnt live anywhere else. So heres my opinionon the cities you listed....
Dallas- It is pretty much the LA of Texas. All about having the money, the job, the right friends and the perfect tan. Nobody in Dallas is from Dallas, they are all transplants, and Dallas is personified by one word, MONEY. Ka-Ching baby! Dallas does have a lot of culture, and there is always a ton of things to do there. It has the most weather extremes of any of the big cities in Texas. They do get snow and ice frequently in the winter months and it can get pretty hot in the summer, as well as they do have some pretty severe weather that us folks in the south luckily miss out on. It can get just a tad windy there. Every famous restaurant/store/bar is represented in Dallas. It is also a pretty educated town, with very limited manufacturing. Dallas probably has the best job market in Texas. Dallas is pretty spread out, with everything being at least 35 minutes away.
Houston.- Well, if you thought you knew what hot was, visit Houston in August. You only thought you knew hot. Houston is a neat city, who has the personality of Oil. Not Southfork Ranch- JR Ewing type oil, but big business oil. Exxon, Texaco and the like. Houston has the worst environment (air quality) in the state, with the most Ozone Action Days (Now Called Air Quality Alerts – another euphemism for SMOG days). With Houston’s humidity, it creates a haze that can be pretty bad, but no worse than Atlanta or any other big southern city. The people in Houston are a bit more friendly, and aren’t as concerned with appearance as they are in Dallas. Houston has tons of shopping as well, but it isnt AS big on Chain places like Dallas is. It has more local flair. Houston also has more than one ecological area in the city, for instance, the Southern and western parts of the city are in the coastal plains and the northern areas of the city are in the piney Woods (Forrest). So that’s nice. Another good thing is Galveston. It is the beach, only 45 minutes away or so from most parts of the city. The down side, is that mans Houston is really vulnerable to hurricanes. Houston has a great nightlife, but it is very big-city. Houston is even more spread out, with everything about 45 minutes away.
I think the smart money has to be on Austin. I love that town. It is where Texas and the big cities meet. It has the look and feel of Texas. Not cowboy boots and Wranglers, but the other side of Texas, local beer, people who think Stevie Ray Vaughn was a god, people who are proud of themselves, who enjoy the out of doors, and the wonderful hill country. Austin is a city of contrasts. A paradox of life. (They even have a pretty good club there called Paradox.) It is a walking, talking, breathing dichotomy of itself. It is both rich and poor, city and country, educated and working class, exciting and boring, wound up and low-key, hippie and yuppie, conservative and liberal, big business and mom-and-pop. I think that’s what makes it cool. It has a very urban feel to it for a smaller city (only 750,000 compared to about 4 million each in the DFW area and Houston.) It almost has a SOHO feel to the downtown area, which I think is really cool. Also it is home to UT, which rocks. The town revolves that and the business of state government. So education is important to all there. Also, Austin ROCKS on its environmental record. Yes the traffic sucks, but the citizens have done a great job of preserving their way of life and keeping the entire city from being bulldozed and turned into a giant strip mall as has happened in so many other areas of Texas. They are really big on preserving the natural beauty of the place. It is beautiful, the skyline is unobtrusive, and the rolling hills of the Texas hill country provide a scenic backdrop to the town, where the affluent settle into multi-million dollar homes. Austin has a ton of lakes, rivers and springs. It even boasts Texas’ only nude beach, Hippie Hollow (but is always nasty 60 years who are all fat, harry and stuff, so don’t think you’re gonna find Playboy or Playgirl models lounging around the river.) Austin is a mix of the weather in Dallas and Houston. It gets cold there, but not too cold, and rarely snows or Ices. It does get hot in the summer, but not nearly as bad as Houston. The clubs on 6th street are great. Nothing better than heading there after at UT football game and spending an evening bar-hopping.
I would totally encourage you to visit and see it for yourself. You won’t be able to get a sense of it from just emails. This is a place you have to, as we say in Texas, “Enjoy its Sabor!” Enjoy the flavor. Don’t worry about the gun issue. Texas was only like the 30th state to pass a concealed weapon law. So the rest of the US has the same laws we do now, plus, most places still ban you from carrying a concealed weapon on the premises anyway, Hospitals, schools, universities, restaurants, malls, theme parks, so its not that big of a deal. That’s just not what Texas is about. The reason Texans are the way they are is that this place is a hard place. The land is hard to work, and the weather is extreme in a lot of the state. Our forefathers fought to free Texas from the Mexican government when we were oppressed much like the early US colonies were. So we fought for what we had, worked to make the land productive and built great cities when the vast wealth in this country was concentrated in the Northeast. Why wouldn’t we be proud. Come experience it. You’ll be proud of us, too.
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