The Datalounge queens are helping a poster decide which city to move to: Windy City or Big D.Here are some of their comments:
I lived in Dallas for many years, and my brother lived in Chicago for many years (so I was there often). Texans are *much* friendlier on just about every level, with the exception of the uppity lip gloss and Prada queens.
Dallas – for the boys. OMFG the boys there.
Heres a vote for Dallas. I go to both places for work and I think the people are friendlier (much) in Dallas. The gay community in Dallas is pretty well integrated now and the service industry is so much better than what you find on the coasts. Warning, though, dont live in the suburbs. It will be hell. Find a cool place to live in Uptown, Lakewood, or North Oak Cliff.
Move to Chicago – I lived in Dallas for six years. It has a little culture. It beats living in Lubbock or Tulsa maybe, but it doesnt come close to Chicago. If you can handle a northern interior winter, then definitely move to Chicago.
ON SHOPPING: Until the 1980s Marshall Fields had a far better reputation than Nieman Marcus, which was famous mostly for its bad taste in gaudy jewelry and other novelties for the ignorant hicks with money in Texas. Marshall Fields had the largest rare stamp, book, and coin departments in the world, and catered to the carriage trade in many ways.
But then it became just another chain, while Needless Markup benefited from the oil boom of the 1980s, when Texans lived like kings off the savings of the people in the northeast. Then when oil went bust, the Texans threw up their hands and made the taxpayers of the midwest and northeast bail out their failed businesses and banks.
But even after all that Nieman Marcus in downtown Dallas has shrunk to a tiny size. I wouldnt even call it a department store, its more a specialty retailer.
