Is Texas a change of pace?

 Occasionally, just before and just after I moved to Texas from California last year, people told me “That’s going to be a big change of pace.”

It was. But not in the way any of them are thinking. I actually live in a far more urban area now than I did before. I live in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area. It had a population of more than 7.6 million at the 2020 census. No doubt it has grown somewhat in the two years since then, as my husband Don and I are two of the new ones.

Making it seem even more urban for us, we are only two miles away from the largest city in this metropolitan area. That’s Dallas, with a 2022 population of 1.3 million. Our city, Richardson, brings in just over 125,000 more. The entire area spans 11 counties, two other cities (Fort Worth and Arlington) with populations over 400,000 and quite a few others with populations over 200,000.

By contrast, I previously lived for 32 years in the Inland Empire metropolitan area, which is just two geographically large and somewhat well-populated southern California counties. There were only 4.65 million of us there in 2020, and possibly slightly less now. (We reduced the population by two, but our former state insists the two-year trend of California losing residents in 2020 and 2021 will be reversed once the Covid pandemic is over.)

For half of those 32 years in the Inland Empire, especially the years 1990 to 1998, I lived far off the beaten path. From 1989 to 2005 I was in the Victor Valley. It has a current estimated population of just over 575,000. It might have had 80,000 living there when I arrived and about 260,000 when we moved “down the hill” to the Inland Empire’s largest city, Riverside.

 And for most of the 1990s, I lived six miles from the nearest town. That’s Apple Valley, which calls itself that instead of a city. It had newly incorporated with a population of just over 46,000 when I moved to the Victor Valley. It grew quickly during its first 20 years and slowly since then but is approaching a population of 75,000 now. Most of Apple Valley is on half-acre and larger lots. Where I lived, everyone was on 2 and a half-acre lots and larger. We didn’t even all have paved roads.

Riverside had a population of about 275,000 when we moved there in 2005 and has since grown to about 320,000. We actually only lived in that city for just under a year and a half. In 2006, we moved to an unincorporated area with a Riverside mailing address.

Goats in the front yard of a home in Jurupa Valley's Pedley neighborhood in April 2021, about two weeks before we left California. 

Our area was clearly in the suburbs. But we immediately realized much of the area around us was still rural. We saw horses, cows and llamas on easy walks from our home. A river ran behind the golf course our home was located on, where we could see coyotes and other wildlife.

Our unincorporated community, called both Rubidoux and Jurupa Hills, became part of California’s newest city in 2011. Jurupa Valley’s incorporation brought some changes to parts of our city, but not many to ours. The city as a whole grew from about 95,000 people when it incorporated to about 105,000 when we left 10 years later.

So, our biggest change was when we moved to Richardson. With 125,000 people, it’s a little larger population than our old city. But Richardson has 28 square miles, while Jurupa Valley has nearly 44 square miles. What’s more Richardson has been a city since 1925, so almost ready to celebrate its centennial. We were sorry not to be with Jurupa Valley when it celebrated its 10^th birthday.

I should also note that we lived about 65 miles from Los Angeles while in Jurupa Valley (and more than 100 miles away when in the Victor Valley.) That also has a bearing on why our last California hometown remains so rural. Until recently, areas a little closer to Los Angeles were home to dairies.

 But Jurupa Valley, more so even than most California cities incorporating in the 21^st century, strives to be rural. California law requires cities to work with developers to provide “affordable” (translation: high density) housing. Still there will always be older housing developments in that city where people can have horses and perhaps other livestock. And there still are substantial areas within that city where people live on the same small farms they or their families purchased long before Jurupa Valley became a city. That’s why even one month before we left, we were photographing horses a short way from our home, and goats a few miles away the opposite direction.

It's definitely not like that in Richardson. Far North Dallas, which is the part Richardson borders, looks more suburban than neighborhoods south of there. Richardson looks exactly the same. You can only tell where Richardson ends and Dallas begins because Dallas has city limit signs on pretty much every street on their border, and Richardson has them on the major streets dividing the cities.

But I want to close with one of the many ways Texas as whole is different from California as a whole. You know how I said my former home, rural in nature but still populated by well over 100,000 people, was 65 miles from Los Angeles? You don’t have to travel anywhere near 65 miles from Dallas to find even more rural communities here.

Today, I am in Garland, the city just east of Richardson. As a whole, Garland is not too much different from Richardson and it is twice as large in population. However, this northeast side of Garland where I am doesn’t look much different from Jurupa Valley.

Goats behind a house on a corner five-acre lot in Rowlett, Texas in March 2022.  They share the lot with a horse. (Near top right.)  I later saw two Canadian geese in the yard as well. 

My husband is working slightly east of here, in a city called Rowlett. The house where he is setting up an estate sale is in a rural area, where the homes appear to be on about five acres and surrounded by areas not yet built. This house is within walking distance of Garland to the west and to another small city called Sachse to the north. The home where Don  is working is across the street from a herd of goats.

Both Rowlett and Sachse are considerably more rural than Richardson. They both remind me somewhat of Jurupa Valley. Combined have a population of about 95,000. Yet, measuring City Hall to City Hall, Rowlett is less than 20 miles from Dallas and Sachse is less than 30. The house where my husband is, to the Far North neighborhoods of Dallas are even less.

And if I were to travel 65 miles from Dallas? In any direction, I would find myself in very small towns with not much near them. I haven’t had much opportunity to do more than wave as we passed through the ones on the 35 and the 45.

Last May, on the final day of our one-way trip from California, we did stop a little while in Weatherford, one of the larger of these small towns, and about 65 miles west of Dallas.  But that’s another story. We also visited Weatherford in 2019.  So, although we probably won’t be able to visit there again anytime soon, it may the topic of a future blog entry.