In another thread, someone from outside the country was skeptical of the Red State/ Blue State thing, but I would present them with this thread as evidence that it is alive and well.
Does everyone want to live in a tourist destination? I don't think so. Leaving aside the financial stuff you guys are arguing about, it's really about the aura of different places, isn't it? I'm not sure how many folks in Texas WANT to move to California, nor the reverse, I'd speculate. Maybe that's why this question arouses emotions.

Dallas retains migrants because many businesses are headquartered in Texas.

Many businesses are headquartered in Texas because it has an extremely pro-business legislature and congressional delegation, resulting in massive tax incentives.

People live where their company is located.

Mah1980, I don't know what you mean by San Francisco's vibrancy... especially in suburban places like San Mateo County or Contra Costa County.

The original poster wants to leave.

The question is about Dallas as an affordable substitute. Since I've had the same experience in my life, I'd say... yes, do it. Dallas can replace the big city experience you have now in the Bay Area, and at a lower cost.

Living in New Orleans vs living in Dallas? Not for me. Dallas has symphony orchestras, a dozen art museums, mass transit, an upscale inner city, more and better restaurants... the list goes on and on. New Orleans has few if any of those things.

I'm not going to go there with you about New Orleans, especially right now.

You still haven't dealt with Honest Abe's good points.

Rhetoric without factual support is just spin.

I'm bowing out of this vibrant discussion.

HonestAbe, I'd question the reality of the numbers you're alluding to.

And I'd question your understanding of what an average is.

As to whether metro Dallas has consistently had the lowest credit scores of the 300 or so metro areas, and has held that dubious distinction year after year, I doubt it.

If the original poster moves to Dallas from San Francisco, will that cause his credit score to drop? Maybe. Making a cross country move and changing jobs might lower someone's credit score. But just living in Dallas, does that hurt your credit, is there some bizzare psychic aura in Dallas that makes people irresponsible? Not that I can tell... and my credit score's fine.

Big-city credit scores
Minneapolis 705
Detroit 675
Boston 704
Denver 674
Washington, D.C. 691
Tampa 672
Cleveland 689
Miami 671
Seattle 688
Orlando 671
New York 686
Los Angeles 668
Philadelphia 686
Atlanta 667
San Francisco 685
Phoenix 657
Chicago 679
Houston 652
Sacramento 676
Dallas 650
Note: Experian collects data monthly from a representative sample of 3 million U.S. consumers' credit profiles. Credit scores are for February 2005. Further details can be found at www.NationalScoreIndex.com.

I think the problem is that people go into debt in Dallas because of their high air conditioning bills, lol!

mah1980, the numbers you posted, assuming they are factual, actually prove my point. Cities with high growth rates and high in migration rates have lower scores. You can see it in the Houston, Phoenix and Dallas numbers. Cities with lower growth rates have higher scores.

All your numbers prove is that credit is correlated with migration.

This is understandable. A cross country move is financially stressful... can potentially cause subsequent credit problems.

Another explanation is youth. Migrants to Dallas and Phoenix are likely to be younger, on average, with lower scores due to their age. This effect also skews the numbers.

Finally, a good fraction of the migrants to fast growth cities like Phoenix, Houston and Dallas are impoverished international migrants... mostly from Mexico and Central America. They vastly outnumber impoverished migrants to Minneapolis, and other such places.

So there you have it. Cities like Dallas, Houston and Phoenix are very popular places for Americans and foreigners to move to. But the heavy influx of migrants depresses the average credit score.

To return to the original question...

Should the Original Poster move to Dallas to escape San Francisco's murderous housing shortage?

You should spend some time in Dallas first to see if you like it. And if you can live away from your family.

mah1980 - I wouldn't bother debating with xbt - he/she is known for his/her rabid defense of all things Dallas. Check out some old threads and you'll see.

Notsure - I've lived in Dallas (well, a suburb of Dallas) and now live in Hawaii. Have not lived in San Francisco, but have family there and have spent quite some time there. Obviously, the two cities are completely different.

I agree that you should spend some time in Dallas checking it out before making a decision.

No, Chepar, it's... "Don't bother debating XBT if you're wrong".

I'm glad to see you're back in fine form, xbt. It was getting a bit quiet around here for a while without all your Dallas statistics.

xbt - You've talked yourself into some kind of random theory that justifies a lower average credit score in Dallas. You still need to make a point.

I've put my facts out there, and feel they make a point. Let's see yours.

No, Abe, there is a consistent pattern in the numbers... what you are looking at is a bias caused by migration... not any alleged moral inferiority in the people of Dallas.

As I pointed out, migration by the young, and the poor trying to seek their fortunes will push those numbers down, as will emotional stress caused by the fact of moving. Dallas' average score is lower than Philadelphia's because Philly has slow growth, little inmigration... and Dallas has high growth and massive inmigration. And cities similar to Dallas show the same pattern. As do cities like Philadelphia.

By the way, does anybody trust a guy who puts "honest" into his name? Maybe HonestAbe sells used cars?

One additional advantage of Dallas over the Bay Area is in the provision of government services. You get through the line quicker in the Texas DMV because they hire more clerks, Dallas-area public libraries are in better condition because the cities and counties don't have unfunded mandates pushed onto them, the Texas state park system doesn't charge people fifty cents to take a shower, or try to save money by not providing electrical drops at campsites.

When I lived in the Bay Area, things were rationed, by making it inconvenient or difficult to get them. Like waiting on the phone for an hour to book a doctor visit at Kaiser Hospital. Only when the shortages and the waits became unendurable was there any relief.

The electrical supply was a good example. Nobody wanted to build new power plants in their town, so the state PUC had to import it from out of state. They devised a byzantine scheme to regulate this, and companies like Enron played the state over and over. As I said, the electricity shortage was allowed to continue until it became unbearable.

The housing shortage is, of course, pretty blunt and in-your-face. But people living in the Bay Area have no idea of other shortages that they suffer and other people don't.

These shortages and economic privations don't just happen... they are the consequences of a society and its values... a society that lives in its own delusions.

I'd still rather spend $2,000 for a nice weekend in San Francisco than $1,000 for a weekend in Dallas.

I'd rather stay in a $1,000 Dallas luxury hotel than a $2,000 San Francisco flophouse.

And I would rathar spend $1,200/month for a studio in San Francisco, than $500 for a 2 bedroom place in Dallas - or anywhere else for that matter.

BTW, in San Mateo (south of SF) we have the same group of neighbors in the blocks around us, that we had when we moved here from SF 24 years ago. Nobody is rushing to leave this "inferior" part of the country.

Stu Dudley

Reasons for the SF Bay housing shortage? San Francisco's suburbs try to restrict housing because property taxes don't pay for the necessary services.

They can't easily raise their tax rates due to an onerous law called Proposition 9. And a lot of Bay Area people believe that constructing buildings on the pristine land is morally evil. Something they call Los Angelization.

Since scarcity drives up prices, people who already own a house want to keep housing scarce and expensive. Until the day when they sell the house and leave the state.

Of course the tax problem is just one cause... there are many others. In general, the Bay Area considers the building industry so antisocial that they load on many legal and extralegal regulations, many inefficiencies... comparatively little building is done.

Dallas, of course, does not have a housing shortage, but a glut. Plenty of houses, plenty of condos, plenty of apartments. Housing is cheap. Nobody has to live in a two bedroom flat with three roommates.

Is there sprawl? Sure, just like the Bay Area sprawl. Dallas sprawl is not as extensive, though, because people don't have to drive 50 miles to find a house they can qualify for. SF Bay's high prices are responsible for pushing the sprawl line into the Central Valley.

Dallas is at the forefront of an anti-sprawl planning tool called "New Urbanism". It basically creates self-contained villages, often around transit stations. SF is a little slow to do this, but it's trying...