Having lived there, disincentivizing jobs and thereby incentivizing emmigration is the best outcome for most people in the DFW area. What a hellhole. "I want to die in Dallas" said noone ever.
> cookies
Our neighbors in California let us stay in their house for 3 weeks. For free.
> a lot of the suburbs around there are _really_ nice
If you think suburban sprawl is a selling point for a city, you may want to visit some other places.
> fastest growing communities in the nation
When land is cheaper than free, you're sort of incentivized to build.
> lower taxes > the economy is booming in Texas
Who gets that money? Texas has a fairly regressive system of taxation: http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/29392/texas-third-reg...
> family friendly
* Texas is in the bottom quartile of social welfare spending: https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative...
* The climate is brutal (at certain times in the summer it's actually cooler further south).
* The distance to anywhere else is unreal.
I absolutely agree many of the people are absolutely wonderful. I have also been to plenty of high school football games where a lot of racial slurs were muttered in the stands.
Also, news media's love of simplification has really twisted people's view of states other than their own. Georgia is about as "blue" as California or New York, but most of it is concentrated in a few counties in Metro Atlanta amid 159 state-wide. People mistake resolution for politics.
If an alleged "blue" state had as many counties as Georgia, those county election maps would look awfully red too. But since they don't, the counties that lean D take up more space, and the extremes on both ends are attenuated in a larger pool so red doesn't look as red.
The south in particular is notorious for having lots of counties. It was a way to get more money during Reconstruction. There's a reason the most prosperous former Confederate states have more counties even if you exclude those formed post-Reconstruction.
And also living in a small liberal eclave isn't that appealing.
So not really a small liberal enclave.