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Hello I'm looking relocate soon. I'm considering Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta. I love what I saw on a House Hunters segment about Dallas. It showed a vibrant, very busy and somewhat crowed downtown area. Lots of people were walking and I got very hopeful when I saw the rail. Just what I'm looking for.
My question is can I find an affordable apartment downtown for me (and dd)? Also I need to know: is everything you need within walking distance or near the rail routine? I would love to be able to walk minutes to a cafe, Starbucks, bookstores, theatres, etc.
How close are the major universities/colleges? Will apply to Grad School soon?
Thanks for any help you can offer. My goal is to move by this fall. I'm going through a separation and need to get out of my horrible city ASAP!!! Very negative place for dreamers and doers like me. Crabs in a Barrel!
Thanks again.
Last edited by ladyfree; 05-28-2008 at 05:45 PM..
Reason: To highlight my heading.
I would think you would want to be in uptown - West Village - and not downtown. There are no bookstores downtown and most of the Starbucks are daytime only. Downtown is busy during the workday, and most of the retail is below ground in tunnels and the tunnels close at 7pm.
Uptown is busy day and night and there is a Borders bookstore in West Village and a Noni place and the Gap and other shops as well as restaurants and pubs. Not sure you will see too many children living down there except North Dallas High School kids hanging out. The elementary school (Travis) down there is a gifted magnet school so it's not necessarily neighborhood kids. I'm not sure how old your daughter is.
Uptown is located north of downtown on the other side of Woodall Rogers Freeway. McKinney Ave, Blackburn - look around those streets.
As FND said, Uptown, and especially West Village, sound perfect for you. It's got the feel of a downtown, but we just call it something different. "Downtown" refers only to the CBD which is wholly located within the freeway loop made by Interstates 30, 35, 45, and Woodall Rogers Freeway. Just on the other side of Woodall Rogers (between Interstate 35 / Harry Hines and US 75) is Uptown, which is probably the area you saw on House Hunters.
Are the apartments in this area in walking distance (in the areas mentioned)? I will drive if I have to but truly want that urban downtown, walk to work/play experience.
My daughter will soon turn 8 and is an honor student. The magnet school sounds great.
This struggling mom really appreciates the advice/tips. God bless.
Everything is definitely in walking distance. It's a great walking neighborhood.
The DART (light rail) serves Uptown at Cityplace (next to West Village) and a trolley runs through Uptown on McKinney Avenue.
Here are a few pictures I found on Google Images of West Village:
http://i.timeinc.net/southern/images/travel_ss/seasonal_travel/1184221/ExptheVillage2.jpg (broken link)
http://i.timeinc.net/southern/images/travel_ss/seasonal_travel/1184221/ExptheVillage1.jpg (broken link)
http://i.timeinc.net/southern/images/travel_ss/seasonal_travel/1184221/ExptheVillage1.jpg (broken link)
The trolley goes all the way to Cityplace Station (which, again, is next to West Village) where you can get on the light rail.
Here are some images I found from a Google Image search for Uptown Dallas
And last but not least, Cityplace Station (the entrance to which can be seen to the left of the trolley in the first photo):
Hello I'm looking relocate soon. I'm considering Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta. I love what I saw on a House Hunters segment about Dallas. It showed a vibrant, very busy and somewhat crowed downtown area. Lots of people were walking and I got very hopeful when I saw the rail. Just what I'm looking for.
Dallas has one of the worst downtown areas of a major city. While many cities have attempted to develop their downtowns in the past few years, Dallas seems to have done very little. There is relatively little housing and everything shuts down around 5:00. The AA center brings some people to the area at night, but the arena is on the outskirts of downtown and not completely walkable or accessible to DARTrail when there isn't a special event.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ladyfree
My question is can I find an affordable apartment downtown for me (and dd)? Also I need to know: is everything you need within walking distance or near the rail routine? I would love to be able to walk minutes to a cafe, Starbucks, bookstores, theatres, etc.
Uptown has what you describe, and may be "affordable" to some - but in general it is one of the most expensive and one of the most pretentious areas in Dallas. You'll find that even though there is a lot within walking distance, most still like to drive and show off their expensive cars. Valet is a lucrative business in Uptown.
Downtown Dallas is pretty walkable, and it contains several areas that are beautiful, interesting and somewhat lively. The West End is filled with restaurants and usually has a pretty good crowd, especially on weekends, the Main Street district is up-and-coming, the Arts district has several good museums to visit. Victory Park is a pretty stunning high rise district, but does not have that much street life as yet. As you may have noticed, the DART rail system bisects the downtown and can get you from one end to the other pretty quickly. Also, DART rail can quickly take you to some interesting neighborhoods around its stations.
Apartments downtown can be pricey, but a cheaper alternative may be the new residential buildings due east of downtown. The so-called Uptown area is actually a continuation of the downtown high rise district north of Woodall Rogers freeway, with residential and entertainment areas north of that, but is also quite expensive.
The east end I mentioned above is scheduled to receive DART rail service in about a year or so, and that will add to its convenience. It is also going to get a large retail area known as City Lights. The new DART rail line, called the Green line, will go from Victory Park, across downtown, through the east side, and then to a huge museum and exposition area known as Fair Park, also a good place to visit, with many museums. by late 2010, the Green line will be expanded to the southeast and northwest, and give you access to Love Field airport, a huge medical center, and the suburbs of Farmers Branch and Carrollton.
"Dallas has one of the worst downtown areas of a major city. While many cities have attempted to develop their downtowns in the past few years, Dallas seems to have done very little. There is relatively little housing and everything shuts down around 5:00. The AA center brings some people to the area at night, but the arena is on the outskirts of downtown and not completely walkable or accessible to DARTrail when there isn't a special event."
When was the last time you been downtown. They are building apartments/condos at a rapid pace. Old abandon buildings are being gobbled up and turned into living quarters everyday. I will admit that downtown has not come of age yet. It's pretty much cleared out by 6:30pm but in 5 years I expect everything to change. I can tell you that many of the old time eating establishment are being driven out. Leases are going up 40-50% on most cases. There still needs to be alot of work done downtown but it is on it's way.
"Dallas has one of the worst downtown areas of a major city. While many cities have attempted to develop their downtowns in the past few years, Dallas seems to have done very little. There is relatively little housing and everything shuts down around 5:00. The AA center brings some people to the area at night, but the arena is on the outskirts of downtown and not completely walkable or accessible to DARTrail when there isn't a special event."
When was the last time you been downtown. They are building apartments/condos at a rapid pace. Old abandon buildings are being gobbled up and turned into living quarters everyday. I will admit that downtown has not come of age yet. It's pretty much cleared out by 6:30pm but in 5 years I expect everything to change. I can tell you that many of the old time eating establishment are being driven out. Leases are going up 40-50% on most cases. There still needs to be alot of work done downtown but it is on it's way.
Can anyone say if this has alot of truths to it or completely off base?
Dallas has a good or acceptable downtown for a Sunbelt city, but it is limited compared to a cold belt city such as Portland, Seattle or San Francisco. Its downtown has thousands of housing units, and specific areas that are lively at night, such as the Main Street corridor and the West End. Other parts of downtown are mainly financial district in nature, and are deserted at night in the same way that downtown Manhattan or San Francisco's Montgomery street financial district are deserted at night.
Dallas' downtown has many restaurants, bars and cafes, but it has very little shopping, except for a Neiman Marcus department store and a 3 block stretch of shops in Victory Park. In contrast, cities such as Seattle, San Francisco and Portland have extensive shopping districts adjacent to their financial districts.
You should bear in mind, however, that Uptown Dallas, much more lively at night, is basically an extension of downtown Dallas, and the same could be said for the Deep Ellum district to the east, although DE is less prominent than it used to be, and has a reputation of being somewhat dangerous. The Cedars, immediately south of, and adjacent to, downtown, is also developing a reputation as a lively entertainment center.
The area that was the center of downtown in the 1950's, Elm, Main and Commerce streets, is now seen as obsolete for use as office space, so the tired office buildings are being rebuilt as residential towers. So what we have is a downtown financial district, deserted at night, surrounded by lively areas on the south, the northwest, the north and the east, more or less in walking distance of one another.
The problem that Dallas has is in not recognizing what a generic downtown is. The citizens have a mental map that considers "downtown" to be a specific area within a freeway loop, whereas a downtown might be better defined as the location of a city's central dense neighborhood of financial, recreational, commercial and residential buildings. This is an important distinction because almost all of Dallas' new high rise office and residential buildings in the center city are going up outside the loop, actually to the north of the Woodall Rogers freeway. Dallas refers to this area as "Uptown". In fact, you can drive north on Cedar Springs Avenue for a couple of miles and see nothing but mid and high rise office and residential buildings, all the way to the Highland Park line. Dallas discounts the growth of Uptown and continues to wonder why its downtown is supposedly so stagnant. The root of the problem is in misunderstanding the definition of a downtown.
One benefit of being in Dallas' central core is the ease of access to interesting outlying districts, usually on the DART rail line. The West Village, Mockingbird Station, the Dallas zoo, Northpark mall, and the Lovers Lane area are some districts that are worth a visit, and are accessible on DART rail. Other destinations are quickly reachable by bus. In September of 2009, the DART Green line will provide rail access to the Victory Park high rise district, Deep Ellum, the Baylor hospital area, the museums in Fair Park and the concert arena formerly known as Starplex.
Other things in the works for downtown in the next year or two are a new park built over the existing Woodall Rogers freeway that will link Uptown to the historic downtown, an extension of the McKinney Avenue heritage trolley line, the opening of several new concert halls in the Arts district, a couple of other parks on Main street, and several thousand more housing units and more feet on the street. The new halls in the Arts district will be nice, and will be a cultural facility comparable in size to Lincoln Center in New York. Dallas is also building a huge new natural history museum in the Victory Park area.
Last edited by aceplace; 05-29-2008 at 01:32 AM..
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