Historically, over the last 100 years, moneyed people in Dallas have flowed north out of downtown, to the Park Cities, Preston Hollow, and into North Dallas. The middle class or more moderate income people moved east through Old East Dallas, to Lakewood, then east of the Lake into Lake Highlands and Far East Dallas. I should point out that for the first half of the past century this meant white moneyed people and white middle class. Minorities (both wealthy and not so wealthy) generally moved south into Oak Cliff, Pleasant Grove, and onto the suburbs like Desoto and Duncanville. Perhaps this is a slight oversimplification, but in broad terms it is true (except for the minorities part which has been changing for the past 30 or so years).
Well for the moneyed people of Dallas, where you live is a really big deal. It’s not just your zip code, not just whether you live in the Park Cities or not, and it’s not even which street you live on. It’s the street AND the address. There are some in Highland Park who talk about living in “Old” Highland Park as opposed to the newer sections. Where the new sections refer to the Henry Exall developed property from a hundred and twenty years ago and not the J.S. Armstrong property from a hundred years ago. These people take where you live as a mark of how wealthy and how cultured you are.
Sostarting in the late 90’s with the gen x-ers, you had more and more moneyed people in Dallas trying to buy fewer and fewer homes. While it is socially acceptable to live in the Park Cities, certain parts of North Dallas and even perhaps parts of Richardson, it’s social suicide to move all the way to Plano or, gasp Frisco. And in these moneyed circles a huge amount of business gets done at social events, like dinner parties or charity balls, so social suicide begets economic suicide. In the minds of old money Dallas, moving to Plano dooms one to a life of economic and social mediocrity, regardless of whether or notthis is true, it’s their perception.
