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L41A Nov 26, 2019 8:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steely Dan (Post 8759568)
that's a good point. we often compartmentalize "the south" into this one big giant monolithic region because that's what the census bureau does for the US with its four big macro-regions, but the south is so freaking big that an alpha city like atlanta has more than enough room to shine all on its own.

up north, shit got split up into the northeast and the midwest, so we think of those places as their own separate realms, and they are to a degree, and thus we don't have a single issue with seeing NYC as the super-alpha of the northeast and chicago as the super-alpha as the midwest.

but it's important to to remember that the distance between atlanta and dallas/houston is ~700 miles, roughly the same distance as NYC to chicago. atlanta has enough space to be its own super-alpha of its hinterland, texas and parts west be damned.

shit gets MUCH trickier in texas itself where houston and DFW are so neck and neck with each other and only 225 miles away from each other.

:tup: I so much agree. "The South" is so diverse in so many ways even within much shorter distances.

austlar1 Nov 26, 2019 8:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by L41A (Post 8759745)
It also can be viewed this way.

Using your 200 miles scenario, the population is 3-4 million more within that distance of Atlanta compared to Houston and Dallas. And to use your word "compete" and to surmise the usage; it can also be viewed that the "competition" maybe and probably is stiffer within the Atlanta radius because it comes from more Metros (although smaller) and in different states/jurisdictions.

I was really referring to a competition for national and international attention and recognition. In that regard Atlanta dominates its region. DFW must "compete" with Houston and to a lesser degree with sexy Austin and saucy San Antonio for the spotlight.

KB0679 Nov 26, 2019 9:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ant131531 (Post 8759072)
It's strange to me. Dallas is the biggest metro in the South and also growing the fastest in terms of population and job growth, yet I still feel like Atlanta and Houston are more prominent, especially culturally.

Texas is in the South but also exists as its own subregion therein. In terms of prominence, I suppose it depends on how you look at things. Economically I do think DFW is definitely more prominent than Houston and Atlanta, especially considering more recent history. Culturally, I think DFW is viewed as more traditionally Texan than Houston and has a more prominent brand and identity.

jd3189 Nov 26, 2019 9:26 PM

Many of the Southern cities aren’t as big as their Northern and Western counterparts by city proper ( except for the Texan cities), but they have metro areas that can compete with all the other metros in the country outside of NYC, LA, and Chicago. Atlanta and Miami are mid-sized cities at best, but their metros are in the top ten. That’s hella crazy and it’s only going to get crazier.

JManc Nov 26, 2019 10:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KB0679 (Post 8759810)
Texas is in the South but also exists as its own subregion therein. In terms of prominence, I suppose it depends on how you look at things. Economically I do think DFW is definitely more prominent than Houston and Atlanta, especially considering more recent history. Culturally, I think DFW is viewed as more traditionally Texan than Houston and has a more prominent brand and identity.

It's Fort Worth that is traditionally 'Texan'. Dallas not so much and it is more well known over Houston due to pop culture references like JR Ewing and the Cowboys. Those images have stuck ever since.

austlar1 Nov 26, 2019 10:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jd3189 (Post 8759840)
Many of the Southern cities aren’t as big as their Northern and Western counterparts by city proper ( except for the Texan cities), but they have metro areas that can compete with all the other metros in the country outside of NYC, LA, and Chicago. Atlanta and Miami are mid-sized cities at best, but their metros are in the top ten. That’s hella crazy and it’s only going to get crazier.

This is probably the only list that matters in the end. The only quibble I have with it is that the entire SF Bay area ought to be considered one GDP.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...n_areas_by_GDP

JManc Nov 26, 2019 10:49 PM

Houston dropped quite a bit in GDP in the past few years. The oil downturn really did make an impact. It shows around town.

Sun Belt Nov 27, 2019 2:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crawford (Post 8759596)
They aren't relocating. They're just using the Westlake office as the official HQ post-merger. But almost no one is moving. The SF office remains.

And it makes sense for Schwab to grow in TX prairie as opposed to downtown SF. Schwab is a trading platform, like Vanguard (which is, not coincidentally, located in an exurban office park, and not Wall Street). These aren't super high pay/high skill jobs. They don't need to be paying $150 psf in some hyper-inflated tech bubble. I wouldn't waste any time growing a company in downtown SF if it weren't purely tech-focused or provided support for such firms (law/consulting/VC).

SF has the lowest unemployment in the country. They have too many jobs, and not enough people. It would probably be better for the region if Schwab left, but that isn't happening. That whole region needs to cool off a bit, and slowly depressurize, or there's gonna be another epic bust.

That's what they said about McKesson and then McKesson started moving people out of SF.

This acquisition will take 12-36 months.

I 100% guarantee you that jobs will move when the HQ is relocated from SF to DFW.

Trae Nov 27, 2019 3:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by L41A (Post 8759745)
It also can be viewed this way.

Using your 200 miles scenario, the population is 3-4 million more within that distance of Atlanta compared to Houston and Dallas. And to use your word "compete" and to surmise the usage; it can also be viewed that the "competition" maybe and probably is stiffer within the Atlanta radius because it comes from more Metros (although smaller) and in different states/jurisdictions.

This is true, but in the example of Texas, Houston has to fight its own state a lot. The other major metros in the state (DFW, AUS, SA) all have government help in the form of multiple military bases and multiple large public universities. In Austin's case, it has the added benefit of the state government. Houston is almost all self-made comparatively speaking. Even now, Governor Greg Abbott is from the DFW area and it feels like his camp has only courted companies for DFW. He's done absolutely nothing for the Houston area.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JManc (Post 8759918)
It's Fort Worth that is traditionally 'Texan'. Dallas not so much and it is more well known over Houston due to pop culture references like JR Ewing and the Cowboys. Those images have stuck ever since.

It depends on the pop culture. JR Ewing is old news now. The Cowboys are still relevant as always. But in today's form of current pop culture, Houston is definitely more in the news than Dallas is. More mainstream musicians and recognizable sports stars come from Houston than Dallas.

Will O' Wisp Nov 27, 2019 7:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by austlar1 (Post 8759920)
This is probably the only list that matters in the end. The only quibble I have with it is that the entire SF Bay area ought to be considered one GDP.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...n_areas_by_GDP

Sounds like you're thinking more of a Combined Statistical Area, rather than the list of Metropolitan Statistical Areas you linked. An MSA consists of the commuting region for a single cluster of job centers, while a CSA defines a region of multiple MSAs with interconnected labor pools. San Jose isn't included in the San Francisco centered MSA because Silicon Valley is an economic destination in and of itself, with its own independent commute patterns, but included in the CSA because those same commute patterns overlap with San Francisco's.

i.e. while people in Gilroy are are almost exclusively commuting into San Jose, and people in Marin County are virtually always commuting into San Francisco, someone in Redwood City could be going either way.

But when you get even deeper though, good and services tend to travel much further than individual commuters. This has lead to the more modern concept of the megalopolis or megaregion, which defines an area with a single pool of specialized services. The resulting maps can look a bit weird from a cultural perspective though.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...egaregions.png

Here you can see that although Los Angeles and Los Vegas has wildly differing cultures and no one would ever dream of commuting between them, because there's a high degree of centralization in certain sectors (namely, most of Vegas' finances are being run out of LA) they're both combined into a single megaregion.

KB0679 Nov 27, 2019 3:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JManc (Post 8759918)
It's Fort Worth that is traditionally 'Texan'. Dallas not so much and it is more well known over Houston due to pop culture references like JR Ewing and the Cowboys. Those images have stuck ever since.

I don't think it's worth splitting hairs over in this context. Both Fort Worth and Dallas are part of the same region which, overall, is seen as more traditionally Texan than metro Houston and has more things that give it a greater level of overall prominence. The region does a better job at branding than Houston.

KB0679 Nov 27, 2019 3:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trae (Post 8760250)
This is true, but in the example of Texas, Houston has to fight its own state a lot. The other major metros in the state (DFW, AUS, SA) all have government help in the form of multiple military bases and multiple large public universities. In Austin's case, it has the added benefit of the state government. Houston is almost all self-made comparatively speaking. Even now, Governor Greg Abbott is from the DFW area and it feels like his camp has only courted companies for DFW. He's done absolutely nothing for the Houston area.

Hmmm...not that I'm extremely familiar with Texas, but this doesn't seem accurate. DFW isn't known for higher education so although it may have some large-ish public universities (UNT?), they aren't notable. Also I can't think of any military installations in DFW. Houston, on the other hand, has UH and the state's only two public HBCUs are in its metro area (TSU, Prairie View). And how can you omit NASA and the port for Houston which are recipients of tons of government funding? Now it's certainly possible that Houston is somewhat being left out of the state's economic development plans, but there's definitely plenty of (state and federal) government money flowing to Houston, probably more than DFW.

Crawford Nov 27, 2019 4:22 PM

Dallas is more like Oklahoma, Houston is more like Louisiana, and El Paso is more like New Mexico. The state is too damn big, so encompasses a variety of regions.

"Traditionally Texan", to me, is somewhere like Amarillo or Lubbock.

JManc Nov 27, 2019 4:47 PM

Dallas is not like OK apart from they are flat and prone to tornadoes and Houston has relatively little in common with LA other than the climate and we are prone to hurricanes. A lot of people from LA live here and probably the case with Okies in DFW. East Texas and LA are pretty similar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by KB0679 (Post 8760502)
I don't think it's worth splitting hairs over in this context. Both Fort Worth and Dallas are part of the same region which, overall, is seen as more traditionally Texan than metro Houston and has more things that give it a greater level of overall prominence. The region does a better job at branding than Houston.

But that's not accurate. Dallas and Ft. Worth may be part of a common metro area but they have very distinct identities. Dallas shed the 'traditionally Texan' long ago where as Ft. Worth still embraces it. Dallas does have better branding than Houston and that stems from it historically being home to more white collar/ corporate jobs where as Houston was traditionally blue collar. That's clearly no longer the case but images are hard to shake and Houston sucks at promoting itself.

KB0679 Nov 27, 2019 5:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JManc (Post 8760592)
But that's not accurate. Dallas and Ft. Worth may be part of a common metro area but they have very distinct identities. Dallas shed the 'traditionally Texan' long ago where as Ft. Worth still embraces it. Dallas does have better branding than Houston and that stems from it historically being home to more white collar/ corporate jobs where as Houston was traditionally blue collar. That's clearly no longer the case but images are hard to shake and Houston sucks at promoting itself.

Dallas might have moved beyond actively promoting itself with traditional Texan images and symbols, but as you yourself just said, images are hard to shake and two of the most prominent cultural markers of the Metroplex are the show "Dallas" and the Dallas Cowboys, both of which have strong associations with traditional Texas symbols, are associated with Dallas proper in name, and help give Dallas/DFW more visibility than Houston. Honestly I'm having trouble seeing where the inaccuracy is on my part. We're speaking broadly here about prominence and the things that play into it; getting into the weeds about the actual on-the-ground differences between Dallas and Fort Worth kinda is another discussion altogether.

llamaorama Nov 27, 2019 5:21 PM

DFW has UT-Dallas and UT-Arlington and UNT which are all competitive with UH. DFW has SMU and TCU and TWU and UD while Houston just has Rice and TSU. Rice is probably way better than all these put together in academic terms of course.

Texas A&M and Sam Houston State are two giant public universities serving Houston, but which are located in traditional college towns slightly too far away to be considered within the Houston metro. I compare it to how Detroit has only one relatively lower status public school in the city, but Ann Arbor is lurking just over the horizon. Or how Milwaukee has Madison.

Tom In Chicago Nov 27, 2019 5:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JManc (Post 8760592)
Dallas is not like OK apart from they are flat and prone to tornadoes and Houston has relatively little in common with LA other than the climate and we are prone to hurricanes. A lot of people from LA live here and probably the case with Okies in DFW. East Texas and LA are pretty similar.

From an outside perspective I think culturally they're more like than unlike though. . . Dallas feels a lot more Great Plains and bible belt-ey while Houston feels more gulf coast Louisiana and laid back. . .

. . .

JManc Nov 27, 2019 7:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by llamaorama (Post 8760627)
DFW has UT-Dallas and UT-Arlington and UNT which are all competitive with UH. DFW has SMU and TCU and TWU and UD while Houston just has Rice and TSU. Rice is probably way better than all these put together in academic terms of course.

Texas A&M and Sam Houston State are two giant public universities serving Houston, but which are located in traditional college towns slightly too far away to be considered within the Houston metro. I compare it to how Detroit has only one relatively lower status public school in the city, but Ann Arbor is lurking just over the horizon. Or how Milwaukee has Madison.

UH aside, there's also UH-Downtown, UH-Clear Lake and UH-Victoria. All apart of the UH system but totally different campuses. There's also HBU. And UTHealth and Baylor College of Medicine...but they are health/medical only

Quote:

Dallas might have moved beyond actively promoting itself with traditional Texan images and symbols, but as you yourself just said, images are hard to shake and two of the most prominent cultural markers of the Metroplex are the show "Dallas" and the Dallas Cowboys, both of which have strong associations with traditional Texas symbols, are associated with Dallas proper in name, and help give Dallas/DFW more visibility than Houston. Honestly I'm having trouble seeing where the inaccuracy is on my part. We're speaking broadly here about prominence and the things that play into it; getting into the weeds about the actual on-the-ground differences between Dallas and Fort Worth kinda is another discussion altogether.
Dallas's popular perception is based on some pretty dated pop culture references. It's like me associating Seattle with grunge and flannel.

Trae Nov 27, 2019 7:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KB0679 (Post 8760525)
Hmmm...not that I'm extremely familiar with Texas, but this doesn't seem accurate. DFW isn't known for higher education so although it may have some large-ish public universities (UNT?), they aren't notable. Also I can't think of any military installations in DFW. Houston, on the other hand, has UH and the state's only two public HBCUs are in its metro area (TSU, Prairie View). And how can you omit NASA and the port for Houston which are recipients of tons of government funding? Now it's certainly possible that Houston is somewhat being left out of the state's economic development plans, but there's definitely plenty of (state and federal) government money flowing to Houston, probably more than DFW.

DFW isn't known for higher education, but the University of Texas system has two large public universities in the metro area (UTA and UTD) which are both vastly improving, especially UTD. Then you also have UNT. Meanwhile, a metro of similar size in Houston only has the Univ. of Houston. UofH has had the hardest time getting into one of the better college conferences. It couldn't get into the Big 12 because state leaders at the time of its formation deliberately left it out. Texas A&M is I guess nearby at about 2-2.5 hours away.

DFW received a bunch of federal and state funding to construct multiple area lakes, which helped with flooding and protecting groundwater. Houston did not receive that same benefit and because of it has had big problems with subsidence.

For military, DFW has Carswell AFB (Naval Air Station Joint Reserve) in Fort Worth, Armed Forces Reserve Complex and Hensley Field are both in Grand Prairie. Houston's only installation (Ellington Field) closed a while ago. The Austin and San Antonio areas both have multiple large military bases/installations. Having those military bases helped transition some of these cities into new economies (like San Antonio with cyber security).

On top of all that, the governor of Texas seems to be leaving Houston out of current expansion in the state, unless it involves an energy company. Looking back at Texas history, most governors have been from the I-35 Corridor of the state, so maybe it shouldn't be a surprise the 35 Corridor is the area of Texas which has received the most economic help from the government, which has boosted the different economies.

Crawford Nov 27, 2019 7:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trae (Post 8760793)
DFW isn't known for higher education, but the University of Texas system has two large public universities in the metro area (UTA and UTD) which are both vastly improving, especially UTD. Then you also have UNT. Meanwhile, a metro of similar size in Houston only has the Univ. of Houston.

Houston has Rice, which is better than any university in TX.

I don't understand what colleges have to do with the discussion. What does it matter?


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