Say what you want. If I had to chose one, I'd take Austin way over Dallas.

I also like this study's angle on the premium that one would pay to live in an area. If it was truly a financial decision (on where to live) everyone would be flocking to Omaha. But the disparity between housing and incomes could also simply be a sign of a housing bubble.

And to say that Fresno is at all desirable.... now we're stretching it.

Jim, you're entitled to your taste.

In my case, I lived in Austin for two months before I got enough of the place and returned to Dallas.

It's a quaint town in some ways, but it's not a real city. Dallas had twice, three times as much of everything, and its sheer size and critical mass created things that Austin can't have at all.

Dallas is very suburban, as is Austin, but it has a relatively dense urban pedestrian core, served by rail transit. You could live in Central Dallas well without a car...

I will say one thing, though,

The farther you are to the political Left, the better Austin looks.

Jim, the bit about people paying a premium to live in high priced housing areas is a bit misleading...

High priced city areas are not growing much in population, especially compared to their suburbs.

Take San Francisco Bay Area, for example. The real growth of population is in the cheap suburbs, not the astronomical-rent city areas.

Central Boston also has high prices for housing. But Boston has very low growth, many people moving out. Their place is being taken by 3rd world immigrants who are willing to accept inferior housing, and less of it.

The reason we have suburban sprawl in America is that people are not willing to accept expensive and rundown housing. They move to suburbs to find cheaper and better housing.

The idea that masses of people are willing to pay a premium to live in exorbitantly priced areas is a myth.

Well, maybe some of them are. Most are not.

Why do some areas have expensive housing? The law of supply and demand. In this case, moderate demand, but little or no supply. The number of new housing units being built in inner city areas is not high enough.

Developers focus on inner city areas in new cities like Dallas and Atlanta, and shy away from places like San Francisco and Boston.

And yes, smaller cities like Omaha and Fresno, with underdeveloped core areas, will have more access to suburbs and cheaper housing.

A comment about the Portland housing price listing: while Portland itself is fairly pricey (or "spendy" as the natives say), especially if you want to live in the NW hills, Lake Oswego, and other premium neighborhoods, it's actually quite inexpensive if you choose to live over the Columbia in Clark County, WA. If you search the leading local realtor sites (www.windermere.com or www.johnlscott.com) you'll find a large selection of decent homes for sale under $200k. People in Clark County also benefit from a geographical/financial benefit--Washingston state has no income tax (yet) and Oregon has no sales tax (yet).
It's true that Clark County is starting to suffer from suburban sprawl (and the job market is still terrible). But we lived in the "old" part of Cascade Park, where the lots were nicely sized with trees and views of Mt. Hood, where the streets had wide sidewalks AND bike lanes (real bike lanes, not tiny ones that are nearly useless) and decent bus service. I walked, rode my bike, or took the bus almost everywhere, including downtown Portland.
BTilke (now isn Europe)

Who is this "me" guy? Whatever we write, it all comes back to Dallas.

Example message: "The Italian Riviera is a beautiful area"

Response from "Me": "Say what you will about Italy, but the Dallas area added more new people than the Riviera, so Dallas must be a more attractive, desireable place to live"

C'Mon.

I worked with a national firm, and we have people based in 32 cities. I constantly interact with coworkers from other areas, and based on my conversations/observations, these are the areas that the young professionals are most attracted to right now:
1. Washington D.C.
2. Boston
3. Portland and Seattle
4. Austin
5. San Diego

nancy you're out of you're clearly unaware of real estate prices in Boston.

Our 1 bedroom 650 square foot apartment is worth about $550k. For that price we can get a full blown townhouse in the Rittenhouse Square area with something like 2500 square feet or a large 4 bedroom home in a very nice town on the Main Line. It may be pricey in Philly, but compared to Boston, it's CHEAP.

Bos: I had no idea that the real estate in Boston is so high, so I apologize. 550K for a 650 sf apartment is almost obscene! My brother-in-law lives in a nice area of the main line and 2 years ago bought a 4 bedroom house, 5000 sf for $850K, and it's nothing spectacular. This same house in any other area but the main line would go for about $500K. The main line is all about addresses. For $550K you can get a fairly decent house in other suburbs of Philly and for 850K you could probably get something pretty close to a mansion.

Jerry....

There's an old saying: write about what you know.

Since I live in the North Texas area, I'm going to refer to specific issues and facilities I know about locally. I've also lived in San Francisco and a little bit in LA and Phoenix, so I can add specifics from there to the discussion.

Jerry, let me explain very carefully to you what my intention is, and what I am doing. I am putting accurate and reasoned information onto a public forum. I am doing it on a forum that is intended to disseminate information about cities and places.

There is a lot of misinformation out there, and I intend to challenge it, and correct it. Many surveys have pointed out the lack of geographical knowledge among Americans, and I have seen the problem is pretty acute with regard to my city and region.

Thank you for bringing up the issue of city popularity, because I think it is an excellent subject for discourse. I'm also interested in demographics and urban analysis, and the issue you raised is, as it happens, inherently interesting: does popularity relate to the value of a city? My answer would be, generally, Yes, but for specifics, not necessarily. Unpopularity, however, is always bad.

If a large, Northeastern city has little or no growth, (I can think of several) that fact is a symptom of some major urban pathology. Something is very wrong with a city with a low growth rate.

Flaws, I don't know who you talk to, and who your friends are, but your views simply don't correspond to the numbers available.

I'm saying that the census (and other demographic) figures give a very different impression than yours.

In the last 10 years, the cities with the largest increase in jobs (and population) have been places like Atlanta, Dallas, Phoenix, Houston, Las Vegas, Washington DC (one of your towns) and Chicago. More or less in that order.

California cities, Northeastern cities, they're pretty much out of the game as far as growth in America.

These other cities are less important to the American people, because the numbers just aren't there. The people don't move there and the American economy doesn't pump much capital into there.

Most of us think that those cities are a little worn out, shabby and poor.

Of course there will always be small, narrowly defined groups of people with contrary opinions. They love things about the slow-grows and also rans that are very real to them, and meaningless to the rest of us.

Well good, a lot of ingredients make for a better stew.

Flaws, anytime you want to have a serious, meaningful discussion about different American cities... one that is based upon facts and figures and verifiable evidence, look me up.

To Bos...

Why do you think real estate is so high in Boston? Any ideas?

Also, is Boston building a lot of housing? Is it enough, does it meet the demand?

I might think that certain Boston neighborhoods are more desirable than others, and a dwelling there would sell at a premium. If so, why don't Boston real estate developers create new neighborhoods with similar popularity? Do they know how to do that?

It is clear that we cannot have a dialogue on this topic. Our measures of success are different, period.

"Me" believes that the end-all, be-all indicator of the health and vitality of a city is the absolute population growth, as according to the census. Who knows, he might be right. But I take a different approach.

I believe that population growth is only part of the story, and the real measure of success if the QUALITY of the growth, who is being attracted to the area, and what kind of contributions those people bring to the community. The example I've used is that I'd rather have Austin's growth of talented, creative knowledge workers than Las Vegas' growth of mainly service-line workers.

We have a core disagreement. But once again you've made your point that you love Dallas, so congrats.

"me" says:

"Flaws, anytime you want to have a serious, meaningful discussion about different American cities... one that is based upon facts and figures and verifiable evidence, look me up. "

After saying things like:

"there are no outward signs of a discontented Gay population."

"Dallas has a high school that produces more grammies than ever came out of Austin."

"But Boston has very low growth, many people moving out. Their place is being taken by 3rd world immigrants who are willing to accept inferior housing, and less of it."

To me, this sounds like some facts and verification are lacking. Anecdotal evidence can only take you so far, especially when you accuse others of not having any facts.

Flaws, you've expanded the discussion with your point about the 'quality" of the migration. By quality, I'll presume you mean the demographics of the population. Not to assume that some people are "inherently better" than others.

Let's assume that we can prove thru statistics that Las Vegas' immigrants are all hotel workers and casino dealers and Austin's are all semiconductor engineers. Which group actually makes a better city?

I honestly don't know the answer to that one. If you are an engineer and you only socialize with other engineers, do you really need to be in a city that imports 30,000 of them a year? How quickly do you change your circle of friends?

There is, of course, a big problem if a city has a glut of engineers, and Austin is currently having that problem now. Hard times in hi tech there.

In practice, however, immigration into a city is never so one-sided. Hi tech cities import engineers, to be sure, but also lawyers and doctors, sanitation workers, kitchen help... the whole range of workers.

Perhaps what you really mean is not the number of immigrants, nor their demographics, but in fact the composition of the city itself? Perhaps there are certain hard to define qualities that make you personally prefer Austin to Las Vegas?

If so, the immigration statistics are relatively meaningless. As they usually are, when applied to specific cases.

Now Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and Phoenix are all high growth sunbelt cities. I'd think that choosing one on the basis of amount of growth would be foolish, since they are so dissimilar in character. If you like mass transit, Dallas or Atlanta. Deserts, Phoenix. Humidity and access to beaches, Houston. Compact, inner-city walkable neighborhoods, Dallas.

The comparison is more obvious when you compare a high growth sunbelt city to a low growth rust belt city. If a large city is not growing, that means that its own people are leaving and no one is moving there. A reasonable question would be... what's wrong with the place?

Flaws, in reply to your second post...

I'm not writing a master's thesis here, where I have to supply a lot of references and citations in the footnotes. The points I've alluded to, I believe to be true, or have read in reputable journals, etc. Not making this up, here.

Re Dallas' gay population. We have our Gay Pride parade, and recently had a week-long gay/lesbian film festival. I didn't see any adverse public reaction. Did you?

The Boston reference, I got out of an article in the Boston Globe. Other sources I've read illustrate the same problem. Boston has to export a certain amount of its unemployment.

The Dallas High School for the Performing Arts has produced a lot of Grammies. Erikayh Badu, Roy Hargrove... maybe a couple of the Dixie Chicks. Dallas' sheer size and its media exposure guarantee a certain amount of national exposure.

As I've mentioned before, my goal is to provide accurate information about my city and region.

This is in response to the comment that housing is cheap in the suburbs of San Francisco. The truth is thats not true-at all. Our growth in homebuilding is coming from fringe metros not even in the bay area proper. $600,000 will not buy you an extraordinary house in any of the major corridors around the bay area-but it sure will buy a mini-mansion out in the central valley and sacramento area.

This has created a supercommuter population that travel up to 100 miles each way back and forth from work-the NYtimes even reports that the worst commute in the nation is the one between the bay area and its surrounding metros. Most of my coworkers live in Stockton and Modesto-we dont even have the same tv stations! They leave at 4am and get home by 8pm

deservedly There are 3 bay area cities in the top 10-and thats inspite of the dotcom implosion. folks the attitude here in the bay area is that its a temporary setback-when the valley does bounce back-itll be more powerful than ever-our history has shown this time and time again. The California Association of realtors stated that if housing prices didnt slow down, we'd have 4 counties with an average home price over 1 million dollars and 3 counties with prices in the $750K-$999K range-so this slowdown has been a welcome break for us.