- Griffin Kibens moved from Missouri to Dallas in 2022, and it took a while to feel at home.
- Her colleagues, the Katy Trail, and moving to a new neighborhood helped her feel better about Texas.
- Kibens likes the variety of restaurants but has found the city's traffic to be a downside.
Griffin Kibens, 27, said she doesn't regret moving to Texas, but it took her a while to settle in and feel at home.
Kibens moved from Missouri to Texas in August 2022 and said the weather that time of year was one of the first downsides. She also didn't see her apartment in person before moving in. While she lived with another person, the apartment was on the first floor, which made her feel nervous about her safety.
Kibens said she was "disappointed in Dallas," but she eventually moved to a different area in the city and lived alone, which forced her to try new things and helped change her perspective.
"It took me a year to 15 months to be like, OK, I feel at home here, and I want to stay," she told Business Insider.
She's now fallen in love with Dallas and has no plans to leave. Kibens said she would've loved it sooner if she'd moved to the "right place."
According to US Census Bureau data, the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metropolitan area had the highest total population growth among metro areas from 2021 to 2023 and from 2016 to 2019 (because of changes in the methodology, comparisons crossing decades can't be accurately measured).
Kibens recommends that other young people try out Dallas, describing it as "a good in-between" city.
"If you want to leave your hometown, but you don't know where you want to go, I feel like it's a good place to go to figure out if you even want to be in a bigger city or not," she said.
Arielle Francois, another Gen Zer who moved to Dallas, told BI she was originally nervous about moving from Florida to Texas for a job opportunity but said she likes the weather and thinks it's affordable for young adults.
Falling in love with Dallas
Kibens said her colleagues played a big role in beginning to love Dallas.
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"We spend the most time with our coworkers, so being around them, some born and raised in Dallas and some relocated from other cities, makes me feel like I am really a part of Dallas," she said. "And having an office that I am expected to be in four days a week made me feel like I really live and work here."
As a fan of St. Louis sports teams, Kibens has gone to basketball games to see the Dallas Mavericks and has gotten excited about the city's sports teams.
Kibens also loves that she can take walks on the Katy Trail, a former railroad bed that runs through the Uptown and Oak Lawn areas. It's another way she feels connected to the Dallas community.
"The Katy Trail really changed my life," she said. "I love walking on that trail and just getting girlfriends together and being like, 'Anyone want to go for a walk?' And you always run into people you know, and then you end up being like, 'Hey, let's go grab a beer at Ice House or Lucky Dog.'"
She also likes that the winters aren't "brutal" weather and that the city has lots of different restaurants. She said she's "rarely disappointed in trying a new place." She's also found that airline prices for Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, which has flights to many destinations, can be good.
Another pro is the job market. Kibens recalled talking to a relative who was looking for potential work opportunities.
"If you're really picky, it could take you a while to find something," Kibens said. "But it's not hard to be employed, I feel like, because there's just so many opportunities everywhere."
The area's unemployment rate has fluctuated. August's nonseasonally adjusted rate of 4.1% was lower than the unadjusted national rate of 4.4% in the same month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Kibens said traffic is a downside of living in Dallas because most people need a car to get around. She said rent prices can be high but that the cost of groceries is similar in Missouri.
In her first Dallas apartment, she split her rent of about $2,400 a month, excluding electric and internet costs. Now, she lives alone and pays just over $2,100 before factoring in utilities.
Zillow data indicated that the overall median cost to rent an apartment in Dallas is slightly lower than the median national rent — $1,477 compared to $1,497.
Home prices in Dallas have generally remained stable over the past few years. Redfin data showed that the median cost for a single-family home was about $460,000 last month, and monthly median sales prices have broadly hovered between about $350,000 and $550,000 since 2021.
Overall, Kibens is happy she ended up in Dallas.
"I think it just takes time; anytime you move, it takes time to feel acclimated to where you're at," she said.
What was your moving experience like? Email this reporter at [email protected].