Smack-dab middle of the Metroplex
-
1/17/2006
The best descriptor of Irving is "middle." It is not the best Dallas suburb, and not the worst, although "D" Magazine in 2004 ranked it nearer the bottom than the city would like to admit. There are good and bad "pockets" in terms of neighborhood quality, ranging from the southernmost portions being taken over by slum lords and the northernmost being taken over by developers of pseudo-European tract mansionettes. A fly-over shows a sea of the same grey-shingled, hip-roofed, zero-lot-line subdivisions that you will find surrounding just about every major metro area in the U.S. Irving has a designated "Heritage District" in its 100-year-old downtown area; sadly, this is relegated to a few streets of mostly retail shops, scant historical buildings, and not many historic homes. Like the rest of the DFW Metroplex, Irving has at least one church at every intersection, a miasma of strip malls and freeways, and very little natural beauty. Aside from that, anything one could want is either somewhere on Belt Line Road or a 20-minute dash to another ticky-tack DFW suburb.
Van | ,