Who wins the Houston vs. Dallas rivalry as the best city in Texas as Astros face the Rangers?

Of course, the cross-state clash has been going on for generations with each side jostling for civic superiority. Dallas crows, “We’ve got Erykah Badu and Big Tex.” And then Houston is all like, “Whatever. We’ve got Beyoncé and Mattress Mack. And how many people has Big Tex helped out after a hurricane? Oh yeah, that’s right. None.” Then Dallas grouses under its breath, “Yeah, but we still have more Alamo Drafthouses and Central Markets.” And Houston claps back, “H-E-B. Within the city limits.”

Boom. Mic drop.

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And so it goes.

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As a Californian who moved to Dallas in 2004 and then Houston in 2017, my allegiances are torn. I can still vividly remember, not long after moving to Dallas, a North Texas acquaintance saying these words with an almost scientific sense of authority: “Houston’s a hole.” And even then, my future Houstonian self bristled at the insult. That person eventually picked up and moved to Las Vegas, so go figure.

But the Houston-Dallas grudge match always struck me as odd, coming from Los Angeles where the rivalry with San Francisco seemed to be made of sterner stuff. I mean sun-worshipping Angelenos always took to heart the sentiment credited to Mark Twain that “the coldest summer I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco” while fog-bound San Franciscans no doubt reveled in Raymond Chandler’s description of L.A. as a place of “dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husband’s necks.”

Now, that’s a rivalry. Not to mention deserts vs. forests. Sprawl vs. density. Malibu vs. Marin. Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley. The Doors vs. The Dead. The Dodgers vs. The Giants. The differences are as stark and sobering as the one thing that unites both: the San Andreas Fault.

Sure, Houston and Dallas have their contrasts. Landlocked DFW has a split personality with more cowboy culture on the Fort Worth side. But, in general, the area generates more of those classic, “deepinthehearta” Texas prairie stereotypes that bind us all in the mind of the outside world, for better or worse. Bonnie & Clyde. J.R. Ewing. Lee Harvey Oswald. And, yes, Big Tex.

Then there are the picturesque county buildings and squares at the heart of Fort Worth, Denton and McKinney and the 1892 courthouse, dubbed Old Red like some lovable dog, smack in the middle of downtown Dallas. The Friday night lights shine big and bright over high-school football fields all across the Metroplex.

Houston, on the other hand, is greener, leafier, swampier, sporting more Gulf Coast, port town swagger and contemporary global cool. We’re just as likely to be scarfing down a bowl of Nigerian jollof rice, a plate of Viet-Cajun crawfish or an order of Puerto Rican-Chinese enchilado chicken as cheering high-school gridiron on a Friday night. At least some of us like to think so.

But both are hot, flat, traffic-choked and suburban in design outside the core. And DFW and metro Houston are of similar size. Dallas, with a heavy assist from Arlington and Fort Worth, checks in with a population of around 7.9 million while Houston is right on its heels with 7.3 million. And one report this year suggested that Dallas and Houston metro areas will supplant New York and Los Angeles as the country’s two largest by the year 2100, with 33 million and 31 million respectively, with Austin holding down third place with 22 million. May the gods of Texas transit be with us.

In other words, despite their differences, Houston and Dallas have a lot in common. So, as both metros cruise to having a population almost as big as at least one G7 country (Canada, we’re looking at you), it may be time to retire this rivalry and appreciate what each has to offer instead of playing this tired game of Lone Star State one-upsmanship. 

But, hey, don’t get it twisted. This doesn’t apply to baseball, or sports in general, where the old rivalry rules are in still in force. Funnily enough, “We want Houston” has become a chant at stadiums among the Astros’ rivals, including Arlington’s Globe Life Field, where Rangers fans may have set themselves up for a self-own of Texas-size proportions.

Then you may be wondering how many people have been shouting “We want Dallas”? Yeah, somewhere between zero and none. 

Boom. Mic drop.

And so it goes.