DFW Metroplex

The Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area, most commonly known as "The Metroplex", "DFW", or the "Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex" (or, even more archaically, the Golden Triangle) is the Lone Star State's largest metropolitan area, and the fourth largest in the USA. DFW sprang up along the diamond-shaped swath of land where I-35 splits into Eastern and Western corridors 35 miles south of the Oklahoma border, and continues a good 100 miles southward where the highway joins up again near Waco. Dallas and Ft. Worth have a population of 1.2 million and 750,000 people, respectively, and there are 10 cities within the Metroplex with a population greater than 100,000.

The Federal Government designates the Metroplex as spanning 12 counties. The main four counties and cities are:


 * Dallas County (Dallas): Obviously the most well known county, and is pretty much completely urban save for parts of the southeastern portion, though it probably won't stay like that for too long.
 * Tarrant County (Fort Worth): Lies just west of Dallas, and known for a slightly more 'cowboy-ish' atmosphere... kind of. Stay in Fort Worth's older districts for that, because when you go further out it just looks like any other sprawled-out region.
 * Denton County (Denton): Used to be where Metroplex residents went for a little "country atmosphere". That is still possible in the northern half, but the southern half is pretty much all urbanized at this point. Denton itself is significantly more liberal than the rest of the Metroplex and is sometimes referred to as 'Little Austin.'
 * Collin County (McKinney): Pretty much the same as Denton County. McKinney is the only county seat in the heart of the Metroplex to not have public transit. The DART extends partway through Plano, the most populous city in the county.

The other counties, with their respective county seats, are:


 * Wise County (Decatur): There is not much to note about Wise County; it's mainly made up of farms and rural dwellers. Decatur, while pretty much a small town in its own right, is the most outlying northwestern suburb of Fort Worth.
 * Parker County (Weatherford): A western county, it's a mix of suburban and rural. It's best known for the yearly Peach Festival... and not much else.
 * Johnson County (Cleburne): Southern county, more mixed suburban and rural. The only outlying county of the Metroplex to have a real public transit agency (CleTran).
 * Ellis County (Waxahachie): Another southern county. Helpful hint to newcomers and tourists: never, EVER pronounce the county seat as 'wax-a-HACH-ee'. It's 'WAHKS-a-hach-ee'.
 * Rockwall County (Rockwall): Known for being the smallest county in Texas, lying just northeast of Dallas County, and being more sprawled out than a tired dog.
 * Kaufman County (Kaufman): Lying just east of Dallas, Metroplex residents who don't have family or friend connections here know it as the place they pass through to get to Shreveport or as the location of many fine outlet stores.
 * Hunt County (Greenville): Northeastern county; pretty much an average suburban/rural setting.
 * Delta County (Cooper): The least-known of the Metroplex counties, and not really part of the Metroplex except by government designation. Perhaps the most rural of the bunch. Very notable, however, in that it's one of 30 counties in Texas that is completely dry in terms of alcohol sales, the only county in the Metroplex to be so.

There are also other cities of notable size, such as Arlington (50th most populous city in the country), Plano (71st), Garland (87th) Irving (94th), and about a half-dozen more within the top 300.

Despite the fact that the media tends to stereotype anyone in Texas as a cowboy and that many people invariably conjure up tragic events when thinking of DFW (JFK's assassination and the Waco standoff - even though Waco is a totally distinct city about 100 miles to the South), DFW has a diverse population, a substantial art and music scene, and a strong array of higher education institutions. DFW is one of the fastest growing areas in the USA, thanks to a number of Katrina refugees and an economy that is strong, compared to the rest of the country.

The Metroplex covers more land then Connecticut and Rhode Island combined, and Dallas is the largest land-locked city in the USA. Fort Worth's official city motto is "Where The West Begins"; consequentially Dallas is sometimes known as "Where The East Ends".

Its tallest building is the Bank of America Plaza, the most recognizable is probably The Texas Schoolbook Depository Reunion Tower, that building in the Dallas skyline that relatively resembles a floofy dandelion. DFW is also home of the first Six Flags—the theme park's name is a reference to the 6 different national flags under which Texas has been governed.

The climate in DFW is highly variable. In the summertime, high temperatures reach about 105. Summer 2011 has seen several days above that median, as hot as 111 degrees, which has strained power grids and complicated an already severe drought. Depending on each year's weather patterns, there can either be lots of scattered strong thunderstorms in the summer (like in 2006), or it can be bone dry (like in 2000, when DFW Airport went 84 straight days without a drop of rain). In the spring and early autumn, temperatures tend to be mild to warm with severe thunderstorms very common, especially in spring. These storms cause the region to be at a very high risk of flooding, hail, hurricane-force wind, and tornadoes which sometimes cause severe structural damage. In 2009, high winds caused the roof of the Cowboy's stadium to collapse, and in 2000 a tornado so badly damaged downtown Fort Worth that several skyline buildings were later demolished.

Even though Texas is known for hot temperatures, arctic cold fronts occasionally plunge temperatures into the twenties and teens, particularly in North Texas and the Panhandle, and can even bring snow to the area. The average snow per winter is only 3.2 inches; the winter of 2009/2010, however, was an exception,: DFW had an astonishing 15+ inches of snow, 12.5 inches of which fell over a 24 hour period in February (shattering a record in the process). The first White Christmas in many decades also occurred. Be aware though: there were more recent snowfalls that aren't counted because of a lack of accumulation at the official reporting station for the region, DFW International Airport. There were also single-digit overnight temperatures and a fair amount of snow in early February 2011, which shut down schools, businesses, and city offices for the better part of a week. Unfortunately enough, this just happened to be the week leading up to Super Bowl XLV, which Dallas was hosting.

DFW is also one of the major transportation hubs of the U.S.; American Airlines is based out of DFW Airport (the third busiest airport in the world in terms of aircraft, eighth busiest in passenger volume), and many commercial shipping firms gravitate towards Alliance Airport north of Fort Worth. Love Field in Dallas is also a major hub.

Due to the influence of car culture and much urban sprawl, public transit tends to be very limited in the region. The trend has turned in favor of transit in recent years, however, due to greater environmental awareness, increases in gas prices, and major congestion on the area highways and even arterial streets.



There are currently four transit agencies in the Metroplex: The T (Fort Worth), DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit), the DCTA (Denton County Transportation Authority), and CleTran. DART is the largest, and serves Dallas, as well as some of Dallas's suburbs, with bus, light rail, and commuter rail service. Many suburbs have elected not to participate, however, including all but one of the southern suburbs of Dallas (Glenn Heights being the exception). On the other hand, most of the northern suburbs (notably Richardson, Garland, and Plano), participate in DART, though there are exceptions there too. In addition to the regular bus service, DART is greatly expanding as far as metro (light rail) service goes, and as of June 2010 has three lines: the Red Line from southwest Dallas through Downtown and up through Richardson and Plano; the Blue Line from south Dallas through Downtown and up into Garland (and soon, Rowlett); and the Green Line, which extends from southeast Dallas northwest through Downtown and up into the northwestern suburbs of Farmers Branch and Carrollton. Future plans also call for a commuter rail line from Plano west to DFW Airport along the Cotton Belt railway, which will connect to the future Fort Worth 'T' commuter rail line at the airport.

Dallas and Fort Worth, as well as some cities in between, are served by the Trinity Railway Express commuter rail line.

Fort Worth's transit agency, formally known as the Fort Worth Transportation Authority but popularly called "The T", is notable because its coverage is much more stunted than DART's, due to a much higher resistance to transit among Fort Worth's suburbs (the only suburb to participate in The T is Richland Hills). Also, The T has no light rail service like DART, though they do have the western half of the TRE line. To open in a few years is a commuter rail line from southwest Fort Worth through Downtown and into the cluster of suburbs to the northeast of Fort Worth to DFW Airport. Interestingly, the line will have a fairly long "express" run in its northeastern portion, due to the only suburb wanting a station along the line being Grapevine, unless others elect to participate. This line will be part of the Cotton Belt line that is mentioned above.

Next, we turn to the DCTA. They offer bus service to Denton and Lewisville, along with a commuter bus into downtown Dallas. In 2011, the A-Train - a commuter rail line - opened, running from from Denton down through to Carrollton, where it connects to Dallas's Green Line light rail.

CleTran provides on-demand bus service to parts of Johnson County and also offers commuter service to Fort Worth's downtown transit hub.

That said, highway traffic is notoriously bad. This is ironic, considering that the Metroplex has the second largest number of freeway-miles per capita in the nation, behind only the Kansas City Metropolitan Area. While most are known by numbers, such as the north-south I-35W (Fort Worth side) and I-35E (Dallas side), some major highways in DFW are often referred to by 3-letter acronyms instead of numbers: LBJ is I-635, GBT is the George Bush Turnpike, DNT is the Dallas North Tollway, and so on. For the truly curious, there's a handy guide to driving in Dallas here.

As far as education goes, there are a number of colleges in the area. Fort Worth's most notable university is Texas Christian University, which has produced a couple of football stars in Sammy Baugh and LaDainian Tomlinson. The University of Texas has campuses at both Dallas and Arlington. Denton also has two major universities: The University of North Texas and Texas Women's University. UNT is one of the state's top five in enrollment and their football team once fielded Mean Joe Greene (that guy whom the kid gave the Coke in that commercial).

Shows set in Dallas:


 * Dallas (obviously)
 * Walker, Texas Ranger
 * The opening scene of the first X Files movie takes place in Dallas.
 * The Good Guys
 * Zombieland begins in Garland.

Shows filmed in Dallas:


 * Barney and Friends
 * The Killer Shrews
 * Leap of Faith
 * Problem Child
 * RoboCop
 * Cheaters
 * It should be noted that every anime you ever watched dubbed by FUNimation, here in Dallas.
 * Born On the Fourth of July
 * Wishbone

Movies filmed in Dallas/Fort Worth:


 * Strategic Air Command (1955): Jimmy Stewart film.
 * Logan's Run (1976): Sci-fi cult classic.
 * RoboCop (1987): Set in Detroit but mostly filmed in Dallas. City hall stood in for OCP headquarters and other local landmarks are visible throughout.
 * R.O.T.O.R. (1989): Inane RoboCop/Terminator knockoff.
 * Serving Sara (2002): Forgettable Elizabeth Hurley/Matthew Perry romcom.
 * Office Space (1999): The establishing shots of the Traffic Jam used real footage of I-635
 * Part of X-Files: Fight for the Future
 * Primer (2004): Independent Time Travel Mind Screw.

Notable people from Dallas/Ft. Worth:
 * Pantera (Arlington)
 * Jensen Ackles
 * Erykah Badu (Dallas)
 * Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker
 * Norah Jones
 * Kelly Clarkson (Burleson, but born in Ft. Worth)
 * LeAnn Rimes (Garland)
 * Ross Perot
 * Steve Miller
 * Dr. Phil
 * Jessica and Ashlee Simpson (Richardson)
 * Luke and Owen Wilson
 * Stevie Ray Vaughan
 * George and Laura Bush, while not originally from the area, currently reside here
 * William Hootkins
 * Audie Murphy
 * Mitchel Musso (Garland)
 * Selena Gomez (Grand Prairie)
 * Demi Lovato
 * The Jonas Brothers (Nick was born in Dallas, and the band members lived there for several years)

Also, Id Software was founded in Dallas and is currently headquartered in the Dallas suburb of Mesquite.


 * Big Fancy House: Look no further than Highland Park, Westover Hills, Preston Hollow, or the shores of White Rock Lake. The latter includes a replica of Mount Vernon, constructed by oil baron H.L. Hunt.
 * Big Town Rivalry: The founder of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Amon Carter, was known for his vicious hate for his bigger rivals in Dallas, to the point where he rallied against that city in his paper, refused to spend any money for food in that city, and wanted each city to have their own television and radio stations, while promoting Fort Worth almost to his death. Though later years have brought the cities both together through the Metroplex, there are still times where both cities maintain their rivalry in one way or another.
 * Cut and Paste Suburb: Let's say a resident took a bus from Forest/Jupiter Station in Garland to the North Carrollton Transit Center, passing through Garland, Richardson, Plano, Addison, and Carrollton. The only way you'd be able to know you've crossed city limits is the little city logos on the street signs changing.
 * Do Not Touch the Funnel Cloud That's You, Ft. Worth.
 * Drives Like Crazy: Sometimes, it's wise to avoid driving on Central Expressway and just take the train...
 * Everything Is Better Deep Fried: Witness the massive variety of deep-fried foods available at the State Fair of Texas. Especially deep-fried Coca-Cola.
 * And now they have deep-fried beer. God help us.
 * Don't forget the FRIED BUTTER! (yes, it's real)
 * Everything Is Big in Texas
 * Fandom Rivalry: The University of Texas vs. the University of Oklahoma. And when the annual Red River Shootout game comes to Dallas every year? Dear God.
 * Friendly Local Chinatown: And Koreatown. And Little Saigon.
 * Gayborhood: Oak Lawn and to a lesser extent, Lakewood.
 * Negated Moment of Awesome: In February 2011, Dallas hosted the Superbowl. Local governments and businesses had prepared for the influx of visitors and had planned quite an array of festivities, but were blindsided by a winter storm which brought in half a foot of snow and ice and temperatures dipping into the teens. One NFL commentator described DFW as a "moonscape." The municipalities of DFW took a lot of flak in national media for (generally) not owning snowplows and sand/salt trucks, disregarding the fact that they would be a waste of money given snow events like that are extremely rare in the area.
 * Though it wasn't specifically DFW's fault, the debacle was worsened when the NFL denied seats to some of the game's paid ticketholders.
 * Made even worse when it was revealed that the emergency seating they had set in place for the ticketholders was structurally unsound. The Cowboys Stadium bigwigs knew about this a while in advance, but did nothing.
 * Even more interesting was that it was the biggest snow storm seen in the area in decades. The Metroplex doesn't even get snow some years, and that year the storm shutdown the Metroplex for a week.
 * New Old West: The Metroplex could be the Trope Maker.
 * My Friends and Zoidberg: Dallas and Fort Worth (And Denton and some others)
 * Quirky Town: Denton with two colleges has lots of Quirky Townsfolk.
 * Also Deep Ellum.
 * Stepford Suburbia: Fort Worth has Southlake and Dallas has Plano Frisco.
 * You forgot Coppell - a Stepford Suburb that just claimed two lives as of July 2010. The mayor of Coppell, one of Dallas's northwestern suburbs, had major financial trouble and major family drama and deception going on, despite putting on a show of happiness.
 * Isn't that was suburbs are for?
 * Touché. However, while a good number of—if not a majority—of DFW's suburbs are of the Stepford variety, some are actually fairly different. Richardson, Garland, and Irving first come to mind.
 * Too Soon: In a lot of ways DFW is just now starting to live down JFK's assassination. Between 1963 and 1990, or so, media references to Dallas area, and often Texas in general, invariably included a reference to the event.
 * One of the most blatant examples is the film Dr. Strangelove: Not only was the film's release delayed, several of the lines and plot points were changed in the wake of JFK's death.
 * Uncanny Valley: Big Tex, the State Fair of Texas' mascot. Just the way his shirt hangs off his chest makes him look like some kind of shrunken, embalmed corpse. And use used to look even creepier back in the 50s.
 * Wretched Hive: Actually kind of averted in the case of the Metroplex. Crime used to be horrifically bad in both major cities as well as some of the suburbs (Fort Worth even took on the nickname "Murder Worth" in the 1980's) but crime has plummeted to the point where the vast majority of the region is relatively safe today, especially when compared to other cities. There are still areas you don't want to walk around at night though, like parts of Oak Cliff and Pleasant Grove in Dallas, eastern Arlington, and Stop Six and the Lancaster Avenue Corridor in Fort Worth.