re: Houston vs. Dallas

So looking back at the origins of each city.

Houston is older and developed faster because of the deep water port and the railroads built for port distribution.

Houston benefited economically and culturally from the great hurricane wipeout of Galveston in 1900 when people moved to the higher ground.

Ports bring cosmopolitan growth and diversity, therefore Houston's cultural development is more "authentic" than what Dallas has.

Dallas is a younger city and has a development history based on agriculture and railroad trade. So the cultural and economic development is based more on transient types and transplants.

So that being said, the Houston "old money roots" are from the actual city itself and have funded the arts and music and food scenes from the inside out. Money and talent originally came because of the port and built out the city's culture.

The Dallas "old money" are descendants from land owners/farmers/cattle men/oil barons and bring culture and diversity from the outside in.

When the Texas Oil Industry took off, the Oil Companies put big offices in Dallas/Ft Worth and the influx of professionals created the suburban land rush. The Massive telecom boom in Post-WW2 accelerated that growth even further. Dallas started sprawling out long before Houston because of the proximity of Ft Worth. Dallas used that model to get way ahead of the land development curve and built better suburbs than Houston

Houston being "the bayou city" and having water/swamps play such a huge part in their development made it much tougher to develop land as well as Dallas. So mistakes were made.

With the "outside in" mentality, Dallas has done an amazing job of bringing in the best the world has to offer and offering versions or copies of it. Houston does that to a degree, but they also focus more on the local/homegrown (once again the inside out) and authentic parts of Houston.

if you don't like a lot of Pan-Asian or Hispanic culture then you wont like much of what is really authentic about Houston.

Thus the perception by a lot of people that Dallas is better. And the counter view by a lot of people that Houston is better. it just depends on what you value more.