The US Census Bureau thread

[dave8721]

Originally Posted by DCReid

I believe many of the newcomers to TX (I don't live there) are prime working age and/or middle class immigrants, especially from India. So I think they would prefer those big suburban homes with large yards because that means they have made it in America. They don't want to live in old inner city house.
I saw the demographics of those areas and many of them now have large Asian-American populations. Someone from Katy, suburban Houston told me years ago that his neighborhood was like 40% Asian-American, and I think those new Collin County suburbs outside of Dallas are 20-30% Indian-American. In other cities, like DC, the expensive suburbs like Fairfax, VA and Montgomery, MD also have larger Asian-American populations that average. They also have high quality schools, which I am guessing the new TX suburbs will have.

My Brother-in-law lives in a new subdivision in way north of Austin and I'd say about 60-70% of the residents in his McMansion subdivision are Indian or South Asian in general.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Trae

For schools, the big city districts typically have a handful of token very good schools and/or magnet programs but you're either buying in a high priced neighborhood or a higher crime/gentrifying neighborhood to get into those. This versus buying in a typical suburban neighborhood where everyone in your neighborhood goes to the school you're zoned to, which is typically higher performing than the same house in the inner city going to its zoned school.

I'm not talking about urban cores, I'm talking about outer sprawl vs. inner suburbia. I really doubt your average McMansion buyer is simultaneously considering urban living.

Is there a metro where the outer sprawl McMansion zone has better schools than the older suburbs? I doubt it. In Dallas, older suburbs like Frisco have much better schools than the newest sprawlburbs. And schools in the oldest suburbs like University Park/Highland Park are better still. In Detroit, the best school districts are all in fully built-out suburbs.

If you're building a McMansion in a cornfield, you're pretty likely to have inferior schools. IMO it's more of a more space/new construction thing.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I'm not talking about urban cores, I'm talking about outer sprawl vs. inner suburbia. I really doubt your average McMansion buyer is simultaneously considering urban living.

Is there a metro where the outer sprawl McMansion zone has better schools than the older suburbs? I doubt it. In Dallas, older suburbs like Frisco have much better schools than the newest sprawlburbs. And schools in the oldest suburbs like University Park/Highland Park are better still. In Detroit, the best school districts are all in fully built-out suburbs.

If you're building a McMansion in a cornfield, you're pretty likely to have inferior schools. IMO it's more of a more space/new construction thing.

School district performance drifts with development patterns, though. And, I would argue it is a lagging indicator of affluence.

This is not necessarily indicative of school district performance, but there's now an International Academy in Macomb to serve all of the new money sprawl in the northern part of the county and it is consistently rated as the top #1 or #2 high school in Michigan. I remember when practically no school in Macomb County made it near the top of the list of best high schools.

[Crawford]

Right, but that's a magnet school.

Highest performing districts in Metro Detroit are Northville, Novi, Bloomfield, Birmingham, Troy, Grosse Pointe. Really only Grosse Pointe district is truly old, but the rest are fully built out.

The really sprawl areas, where homes are going up on farmland, have above-average but not great schools. South Lyon, Milford, Brighton, Oxford, Lake Orion, Macomb, Romeo, etc.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

The opposite is likely true, given the stroads and extreme commuting.

"OMG, I would never take my family down into the city, it's WAY too dangerous!" says the suburban soccer mom, without the slightest hint of irony, as she buckles her brood into the back of the minivan to go careening down the high speed stroads of her world multiple times per day, every day.

People generally suck at risk assessment.

[Chisouthside]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

"OMG, I would never take my family down into the city, it's WAY too dangerous!" says the suburban soccer mom, without the slightest hint of irony, as she buckles her brood into the back of the minivan to go careening down the high speed stroads of her world multiple times per day, every day.

People generally suck at risk assessment.

I recently visited friends from California that ended up east of Rockwall, which is east of Dallas, and they hate driving into Dallas because of all the accidents. They pointed out all the roadside altars in the access road from their subdivision to the main freeway and indeed there was alot of altars for people that have passed away on that particular stretch.

[Trae]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I'm not talking about urban cores, I'm talking about outer sprawl vs. inner suburbia. I really doubt your average McMansion buyer is simultaneously considering urban living.

Is there a metro where the outer sprawl McMansion zone has better schools than the older suburbs? I doubt it. In Dallas, older suburbs like Frisco have much better schools than the newest sprawlburbs. And schools in the oldest suburbs like University Park/Highland Park are better still. In Detroit, the best school districts are all in fully built-out suburbs.

If you're building a McMansion in a cornfield, you're pretty likely to have inferior schools. IMO it's more of a more space/new construction thing.

Frisco is not an older Dallas suburb. It is one of the newer suburbs and didn't start growing until the mid to late 90s. Its still at the far north end of DFW sprawl too, despite all the growth in Collin County. An old typical sprawling suburb for Dallas is somewhere like Richardson which started growing in the 50s. But one reason why Frisco has better schools than other newer suburbs like it is because Frisco is where many of the jobs are now so it commands a higher dollar, which higher incomes trickle down to better schools. That and Collin County in general is very competitive with its schools. Great schools there have become a self-fulfilling prophecy, hence the price points to get in now.

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

"OMG, I would never take my family down into the city, it's WAY too dangerous!" says the suburban soccer mom, without the slightest hint of irony, as she buckles her brood into the back of the minivan to go careening down the high speed stroads of her world multiple times per day, every day.

People generally suck at risk assessment.

Yes driving down a high speed road is dangerous because people don't pay attention on the road but you can get distracted drivers hitting you in ped-crossongs plus random muggings or damaged/stolen property in urban areas too. There's a lot to offer in the core so it's nice to see them still growing but the stats don't lie.

For me I don't get the same diversity of restaurants or get to walk to an area with as many offerings. Now restaurants close early and the trails lead to parks or parking lots. On the flipside I could leave my keys in the car overnight and not worry. Kids can go to the neighborhood school with everyone else. And my suburb has walkable areas we go to when we need a fix but don't want to drive in to town. I see both sides.

Originally Posted by DCReid

Interesting, especially about the old downtowns. I thought maybe since Dallas was an older city, it had more old downtowns. Houston has been written off many times, and I would suspect it is doing well given its economic profile because it is in Texas. A joke in the 80s was that it was the next Detroit. Other oil towns have not done well - New Orleans is not really growing and Tulsa is an oil town that is overshadowed by OKC and growing much more slowly. I guess it also benefited because the industry consolidated there, and it also drew in international companies. Even the small metro next to it, Beaumont, is not growing.

Houston is the older city. Dallas had more little cities with identities they wanted to keep so when annexation started they did their part too, whereas Houston area suburbs did nothing as Houston surrounded them. Houston benefited from the energy industry consolidation that is still going on but also finally diversifying. The way DFW planned and built itself just appeals to more general Americans which is why it is far and away the most popular metro area right now to move to (it gained 90k alone in domestic migrants last year).

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Trae

Frisco is not an older Dallas suburb. It is one of the newer suburbs and didn't start growing until the mid to late 90s.

Crawford is correct that Frisco is an "older" suburb, in contrast with the "newer" suburbs like the ones listed below (Celina, Princeton, Anna, Prosper, Forney...)

1990s is "older" compared to the 2020s. These newer suburbs are to the 2020s what Frisco was to the 1990s. Ergo, Frisco is clearly an "older" suburb, from a previous generation of DFW suburbanization. Not "old" in a vacuum, just older.

Originally Posted by C.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Trae

Houston is the older city. Dallas had more little cities with identities they wanted to keep so when annexation started they did their part too, whereas Houston area suburbs did nothing as Houston surrounded them. Houston benefited from the energy industry consolidation that is still going on but also finally diversifying. The way DFW planned and built itself just appeals to more general Americans which is why it is far and away the most popular metro area right now to move to (it gained 90k alone in domestic migrants last year).

I may be wrong but is the land around Dallas easier to develop (drier) than around Houston? Or that makes zero difference to sprawl potential?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Trae

Yes driving down a high speed road is dangerous because people don't pay attention on the road but you can get distracted drivers hitting you in ped-crossongs plus random muggings or damaged/stolen property in urban areas too.

I live in Chicago proper.

I'm fully aware that this town ain't no fucking Mayberry.

My comment about the oblivious soccer mom was speaking to the general myopia afflicting our society that only crime is dangerous, as an add-on to Crawford's earlier post.

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Birth rates & household sizes have never been lower, so it's weird that people still want bigger and bigger homes. How much does it cost to AC a 4,000 sq. ft. home in the summer TX heat? No basements, right? In the north, that would be a 6,000 sq. ft. house, functionally.

Crime rates are near modern-day lows, and I don't think there's any evidence that sprawl is statistically safer than non-sprawl. The opposite is likely true, given the stroads and extreme commuting.

And the highest performing schools are almost always in close-in communities, not sprawl. But those districts usually have much higher home prices.

The median home size in Collin County (your poster child for "McMansion" sprawl) is 2,541 sq. ft. That's down from the record high of 3,250 sq. ft. recorded in 2017. Most new construction in DFW suburbs is just standard issue suburban sprawl that you find across the US.

[Crawford]

Frisco is largely built-out and has much better schools than the fringe places driving Dallas-area construction. The new places are desirable due to more house for your money. Someone who places greater value on schools would head to an established suburb, sacrificing space for schools.

And West Plano, older and closer-in than Frisco, has even better schools. And North Dallas and Highland Park have the best schools (tho in Dallas proper you're talking private; I doubt many households in affluent parts of North Dallas even consider public).

[Trae]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Frisco is largely built-out and has much better schools than the fringe places driving Dallas-area construction. The new places are desirable due to more house for your money. Someone who places greater value on schools would head to an established suburb, sacrificing space for schools.

And West Plano, older and closer-in than Frisco, has even better schools. And North Dallas and Highland Park have the best schools (tho in Dallas proper you're talking private; I doubt many households in affluent parts of North Dallas even consider public).

My point was, Frisco until 2020 was one of those burbs. Frisco is not an old suburb in Dfw and no one from there considers it that. Middle aged maybe, but not old (again that's a Richardson or Irving). Frisco almost doubled in population between 2010 and 2020, and has had good schools since the growth started there in the 90s. It is only just now literally running out of land as some of the last parcels are being given to a PGA Resort and Universal Studios.

West Plano has is home to the bulk of Collin County's companies/headquarters so makes sense it became the high dollar side, which in the suburbs results in good schools.

Private schools are a whole other story. The point of going moving into a nice suburb with good schools is so you don't have to pay for private schools. In the inner cities you can move to an even nicer house but the school your house is zoned to might suck, so you have to go magnet, do a school lottery, or go private.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Frisco is largely built-out and has much better schools than the fringe places driving Dallas-area construction. The new places are desirable due to more house for your money. Someone who places greater value on schools would head to an established suburb, sacrificing space for schools.

And West Plano, older and closer-in than Frisco, has even better schools. And North Dallas and Highland Park have the best schools (tho in Dallas proper you're talking private; I doubt many households in affluent parts of North Dallas even consider public).

You have to factor in cost. The people moving to Forney are moving to modest tract houses that are relatively affordable compared to more established suburbs closer to Dallas. Most production homes range from about 1,800 to 2,500 s/f and are by no means McMansions.

[Nouvellecosse]

It's absolutely true that in car-dominated areas there is usually a greater risk from car-related injuries than from the crime in many more urban areas. The "Oh the Urbanity!" channel discussed this fairly recently and even showed actual stats. It isn't just two equal risks with one that some people are more familiar with and another that other people recognize. It's that one - crime - is a widely recognized risk that basically everyone is aware of to some degree with some placing greater emphasis on it than others, while the other - car dominance - is a risk that some don't even realize exists. There are probably many people who think that settings with wide, straight, multi-lane streets are actually safer to drive on since the infrastructure is specifically designed for the efficient flow of cars. Yet in reality, it's statistically more dangerous because of the higher speeds, false sense of security, complacency, and the much higher number of vehicle miles driven.

I get that most things can be viewed from more than one side or perspective, but I hate false equivalences where people try to pretend that everything is perfectly symmetrical when few things are.

• Video Link

[Steely Dan]

^ great video!

And if we go back to the car wrecks vs. crime perception thing, and which you should be more afraid of, it's also important to remember that car wrecks are FAR more random than homicides, on average. In a city like Chicago, if you ain't in a gang or gang-adjacent (relative, friend, neighbor, etc.), the actual chances of you being shot while visiting the city are vanishingly small. Last year we had a grand total of zero suburban soccer moms and their young children murdered on the streets of Chicago.

Yet, the good old 'responsible" soccer mom who hauls her kids around suburbia on high speeds stroads a couple of times a day, everyday, (without giving it even the slightest of first thoughts, mind you) will never believe it because "OMG, the city is so dangerous!!! Haven't you been watching the news?"


Again, most people suck at risk assessment because emotions.

[Trae]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ great video!

And if we go back to the car wrecks vs. crime perception thing, and which you should be more afraid of, it's also important to remember that car wrecks are FAR more random than homicides, on average. In a city like Chicago, if you ain't in a gang or gang-adjacent (relative, friend, neighbor, etc.), the actual chances of you being shot while visiting the city are vanishingly small. Last year we had a grand total of zero suburban soccer moms and their young children murdered on the streets of Chicago.

Yet, the good old 'responsible" soccer mom who hauls her kids around suburbia on high speeds stroads a couple of times a day, everyday, (without giving it even the slightest of first thoughts, mind you) will never believe it because "OMG, the city is so dangerous!!! Haven't you been watching the news?"


Again, most people suck at risk assessment because emotions.

What's funny to me is you said no one in the city is worried about speed racers in the suburbs, yet the YouTube comments prove otherwise as people are saying they are even too afraid to bike because of vehicles. Speed racers in the suburbs would scare the fuck out of them.

This thing goes both ways. People assess risks when they move somewhere. A person is not an idiot for moving to the suburbs just because American roads are dangerous when compared to Canada and other western nations.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Trae

A person is not an idiot for moving to the suburbs

Jesus Christ, exactly no one is saying that.

But being terrified of a thing that has a relatively low risk of occuring, while completely ignoring the very real danger staring you in the face is a type of idiocy.

Don't worry though, as I said before, most people are pretty bad at risk assessment because their emotions get in the way. Suburban soccer moms are not the only ones guilty of this, but they are a pretty easy target because they are more emotional than most.

[Trae]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Jesus Christ, exactly no one is saying that.

But being terrified of a thing that has a relatively low risk of occuring, while completely ignoring the very real danger staring you in the face is a type of idiocy.

Don't worry though, as I said before, most people are pretty bad at risk assessment because their emotions get in the way. Suburban soccer moms are not the only ones guilty of this, but they are a pretty easy target because they are more emotional than most.

But what are you basing that on? And then you are only looking at exaggerated fears from the suburban soccer mom side too. when I brought up one urban folks might have you dismiss it. at the end of the day, there are risks in literally everything. I'm not gonna fault anybody.

[Trae]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

It's absolutely true that in car-dominated areas there is usually a greater risk from car-related injuries than from the crime in many more urban areas. The "Oh the Urbanity!" channel discussed this fairly recently and even showed actual stats. It isn't just two equal risks with one that some people are more familiar with and another that other people recognize. It's that one - crime - is a widely recognized risk that basically everyone is aware of to some degree with some placing greater emphasis on it than others, while the other - car dominance - is a risk that some don't even realize exists. There are probably many people who think that settings with wide, straight, multi-lane streets are actually safer to drive on since the infrastructure is specifically designed for the efficient flow of cars. Yet in reality, it's statistically more dangerous because of the higher speeds, false sense of security, complacency, and the much higher number of vehicle miles driven.

I get that most things can be viewed from more than one side or perspective, but I hate false equivalences where people try to pretend that everything is perfectly symmetrical when few things are.

• Video Link

The only thing this video proves is that American driving, whether urban or suburban, is more dangerous than other western countries but specifically Canada. And of course they are only looking at violent crime. A burglary or someone stealing your car isn't a violent crime.

There's more to the story than just the stats. For example California suburbs have some wide roads with speed limits up to 55 MPH in some places. Then you have LA with a weird mix of urban-suburban. Yet California as a state was closer to Canadian provinces, yet the rural Southern states are at the top of the list with Mississippi leading the way. Is MS known for fast growing typical American suburbs? Nope.

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Texas has a motor vehicle death rate of 15/100K in 2023. Dallas, the most shooty large Texas city, had a murder rate of 19/100k last year. For most people who aren't part of gangs or get into fights over dumb shit, they probably are significantly more likely to die from driving than from being shot.

You're just looking at murder rate which is the ultimate crime but not the only one people consider when they leave the city. You can add people who don't drive at certain times of the day are less likely to be in a fatal accident too. What are we going to do next? Say people who drive to work are dumb because statistically it is safer to fly a helicopter so they should save up for one?