home13oy75

Hi,

I'm currently from the suburbs of Chicago IL and my wife and I are planning on possibly moving to the suburbs of Dallas. One of the suburbs that we are considering is Plano. How is that area? Are the school systems decent? How's the crime rate?

I figured that you all would be able to provide a better picture of the area compared to trying to dig up information on the interent. I went to the plan police dept website and noticed that there seems to be quite a bit of home burglaries reported. Is this a problem in this area?

Thanks in advance!

Ray

Gregg Lee

There are many who live in north suburbs, so they can comment. Just live close to work. Traffic is bad everywhere.

One thing to note regarding schools: In Texas, the school districts are separate political entiites chartered by the state. They are not subordinate to either city or county government. Their boundaries do not match other political boundaries even if they have the same name. So avoid nasty surprises: you must ask what school district separate from what city or county.

Aside from the quality question, the school district accounts for the majority of your property taxes, with city next and county third.

Kaiser

I live in Allen and work in Plano... it's pretty nice.

Allen / McKinney / Frisco (further north) is where everyone is moving to now... generally nicer/newer than Plano - but Plano is still fine.

As you go further south there is Richardson and then Garland. I would avoid Garland and maybe Richardson. Garland has nice sections and not-as-nice sections. Richardson is generally okay - but again - the further north you go, the more upscale / nicer it gets.

SpeedxRacer

=[ I live in Richardson.

Anyways Plano is a nice little area to live, some places are real upscale and some places are your normal suburbs. I dont think crime rate is high at all in Plano compared to Garland etc.

home13oy75

Thanks for all the replies. My wife is currently in the Dallas area right now visiting some friends. She was telling me that there was a lot of construction going on over in Allen and Sunnyvale. Is it true that there are rarley any basemets because of the grouund being really tough or is it because of flooding?

As far as traffic - it takes me about 1.5 hours to get to work which is approx 20 miles away. Chicago has pretty bad traffic - so I guess I'm somewhat use to that already. How are all the tuner shops out in the area? I have a comptech s/c s2000 and would love to do a little more work to it. We kinda lack good tuner shops in my area so I went with a Emanage - but I would have rather gone with the EMS - no one can really tune it for me here.

I'm actually really excited about possibly moving to Dallas - year round driving!

Btw, how is the gang situation? We have a problem here in Chicago - I work in a hospital and I see shootings at least 3 a week. I must admit I'm a little worried about how everyone can carry firearms. Are there a lot of shootings in Dallas?

Sorry for all the questions I just had a lot unanswered questions.

Ray

outlaw442

Basements are not really required down here.

tuner shops there are quite a few. there are good and bad. import tuners aren't as common as the domestic shops. there is MVP in Fort Worth (I get there stuff at wholesale cost if you need a hook up), Intercrew Auto Salon in Richardson, Jotech in Garland, a few in arlington.

I'd prefer to not answer the shooting question since there are more than three shootings a week here. it's not because of the concealed carry. cause criminals don't care about the law.

SpeedxRacer

Honestly the shootings are rare around the suburbs, Gang violence is almost non existance now a days and I live near Garland.

mxt_77

My comments: It seems like the nice areas are north and west of Dallas. East and south are generally less favorable. I'm actually moving to a community North/NorthEast of Dallas called Wylie. It's a pretty nice suburb, and you can get a lot of bang for your buck, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of commercial conveniences out there yet. I chose that location because of its proximity to my job, but if that weren't a factor, I probably would've gone to McKinney (due north of Dallas). Alternatively, if I could afford it, I'd go to northwest Plano, or possibly Frisco. Pretty much anything near the tollway (which runs down the west side of Plano & Dallas) is $$$.

As for gangs & stuff... I don't know how widespread it is, but I do know that I was jumped by a group of individuals while waiting for the light rail in Richardson about a month ago. Since I'm still alive, I doubt it was gang related. Probably just a bunch of no-good thugs looking for kicks. Not sure if that is a common occurrence, but I know that once is more than enough for me.

By the way... Dallas does have the highest crime rate in the country. I don't usually see it, but apparently it's there.

Kaiser

No new information here.... but a few thoughts:

1) Basements: They just don't do them here.... I don't know why or why not. My uncle's house in Fort Worth has one - but that's the only home that I've ever been in around here that does.

2) Richardson: Sorry SpeedxRacer. There are some nice places in Richardson... but there are also some areas that are going downhill... so I put it on my "not so sure" list

3) Concealed handguns: You have to be a model citizen to get a concealed handgun license... no late child support payments, no felonies, some limitation about class a & b misdemeanors, too - but I forget what. Plus you have to take a 10 hour class, pass a shooting test, and pay a few hundred bucks.... so basically you're not going to catch any trouble from a legal CHL carrier. It's the criminals that you've got to look out for.

4) Crime: In the suburbs, it's pretty normal / safe. There are car burglaries, house burglaries etc like anywhere... I don't think you're any more likely to have trouble here than anywhere else. Down in Dallas, proper... well... be careful. I was mugged at gunpoint there last August (though at the same time I've lived in various Dallas suburbs for 20+ years and that was the first time).

You haven't looked around enough if you think that... Wylie has absolutely exploded in the last couple of years. There is even a Wal Mart out there now!!! (BTW - you can equate my "!!!" with disgust for Wal Mart.... Wylie used to be such a nice little town and now it's turned into...well...everywhere else)

Gregg Lee

Mosty it's hydrophilic clay that will crack a basement as it cycles. Much of Plano is 40 feet of the stuff. Slabs are hard enough to keep together. When rock is near enough the surface to support then it's just cost. And since so few are build, no one knows how.

Generally no deep stable sandy soils where you can scoop a hole in a day, at least not on the US75 or I35 E corridors.