Am I fooling myself?

I have yet another confession to make. I am a Dallas snob. I live in Dallas. Not Plano. Not Garland. Not Irving. Not, God forbid, Mesquite. I live in Dallas. I like it here. My favorite (and I dare say, one of the best) pizza place is 2 minutes from my house, literally. Almost any store or restaurant is less than 10 minutes from my front door. By comparison, I grew up in Gainesville, TX, where a 45-minute drive to the mall was as normal as yawning.

When my family asks that I meet them for dinner in Lewisville or Frisco, I cringe. I know I must now prepare to do battle with the suburbs. Minivans, an inordinate amount of strollers, and 45-minute waits in all the restaurants are in store. I’m pretty sure I coined the phrase, "Once you leave the loop, all bets are off." Essentially, civilization ends one foot north of 635. At one point my Sunday class (when I still attended Sunday school) even noted such events I would be less likely to attend because of their location. There are those who trump even my snobbishness, though. They would agree with the above statement, the difference being the loop they speak of is Loop 12. Those people are obviously being ridiculous. And so am I.

Not that there isn’t some truth in what I say, but we got our crazies, too. There are many who agree with me and join in my snobbery . And I thought, for the most part, I agreed with them. I had a recent post about the new FC Dallas stadium which resulted in some comments about my disappointment with Dallas’ continuing inability to keep sports teams in the area. This eventually led me to the thought, "Maybe we’re the fools."

Reasons why I say this:

A Major League Baseball game is a 30-45 minute drive away (Arlington). Soon, an NFL game will be the same (Arlington). A minor league baseball game is a 20-30 minute drive away (Frisco). A Major League Soccer game is same (Frisco). The preeminent art museum in the area is in Ft. Worth. So is the preeminent Zoo. While we’re talking about Ft. Worth, they have Sundance Square, we have...the West End? While there’s plenty of movie screens everywhere, I know where I had to go when I wanted to geek out at the only digital screen for Star Wars (Plano).

Also, recently I considered making the transition from renter to owner. Once again, I live in a house in Lake Highlands. Fairly decent house in a fairly decent neighborhood. Purchasing a house where I currently reside is not economically feasible. Because I do work right off 75 in Richardson, I expanded my search north along the corridor (Plano, Allen, McKinney). What I found was that I could live in a new (2-6 years) home of acceptable dimensions (2000+ sq. ft. ) in a comfortable neighborhood for about 40%-75% less. I would dare to guess my taxes and insurance would be less, as well. My car insurance would also go down.

I guess what I’m saying is the number of reasons to come to Dallas seems to be decreasing. I have no idea why someone would vacation here. The reasons not to live here—traffic, expense, crime—seem to be increasing. Maybe the question is, why should I stay?