City comparison · 1,494 km apart

Charlotte vs Dallas: which should you move to?

Charlotte or Dallas? Housing, rent, crime, climate, income, taxes and transit, side by side, from each city's own published figures. Written for someone deciding where to live, not for a ranking.

Uptown from the air
North Carolina · United States

Charlotte

Photograph: Uptown from the air · CamiJBoo · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Downtown across the Trinity
Texas · United States

Dallas

Photograph: Downtown across the Trinity · Tony Webster · CC BY-SA 2.0 · source
The short answer

Both cities price in US dollars, so the figures net directly, and the house is where they part. Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $2,644 a month on Charlotte's July 2026 median and about $3,529 on Dallas's August median; about $83 of the $885 gap is the two mortgage rates being read a month apart, 6.67% against 7.03%. Most of the rest is a property tax of $7,448 a year against $3,010 and home insurance priced for North Texas hail, and Dallas pays it on less: the city's median household income is $74,323 against $86,416, so the carry is about 57% of it against 37%. Crime does not favor one city throughout. Dallas's violent and property rates are the lower ones, 577 and 3,081 per 100,000 against about 607 and 3,639, while homicide is level at about 10.5 and 10 per 100,000. Dallas has the larger labor market, the higher wages and DFW; Charlotte has the faster-growing city and Medicaid expansion. Choose Charlotte to own a house on a median income. Choose Dallas for corporate headquarters, the flights and no state income tax, and budget for the property tax.

Population
MeasureCharlotteDallasAdvantage
City population964,784 (2025)1,329,491 (2025)Not directly comparable
Metro population2,938,830 (2025)8,477,157 (2025)Not directly comparable
Five-year growth
Growth is pressure on rents and roads as much as it is opportunity, so it is reported without a winner.
10.3% (2020-2025)1.9% (2020-2025)Not directly comparable
01: Housing

What a home costs in each

The figures the two cities' rent-versus-buy and mortgage calculators run on, read from the same tables.

Housing costs
MeasureCharlotteDallasAdvantage
Benchmark home price
MLS® HPI or equivalent benchmark. Lower is treated as the advantage, which is the buyer's view rather than the owner's.
$430,000 (July 2026)$469,900 (August 2026)Charlotte
Detached house benchmark
Dallas publishes a single house index rather than a composite, so the two rows repeat.
$420,000$469,900Charlotte
Apartment or condominium benchmark$292,000$310,000Charlotte
Two-bedroom rent$1,781/mo (average, August 2026)$1,853/mo (average, August 2026)Charlotte
One-bedroom rent$1,470/mo$1,416/moDallas
Two-bedroom rent against median income
A year of two-bedroom rent as a share of the median household income below. A household paying the median rent out of the median income is a fiction, but it is the same fiction in both columns and it crosses currencies.
24.7% of a year's income29.9% of a year's incomeCharlotte
Mortgage payment on the benchmark, 20% down
30-year amortization on American monthly compounding, the convention in both.
$2,213/mo at 6.67%$2,509/mo at 7.03%Charlotte
Price to household income
Benchmark price divided by the median household income below. A ratio is comparable across currencies; the dollars are not.
5.0×6.3×Charlotte
Property tax on the benchmark home
The effective rate on market value, which is what the two rates have in common and what the Advantage column is decided on; the bills are in each city's own dollars.
$3,010/yr (0.70%, 2026)$7,448/yr (1.585%, 2025)Charlotte
Transfer tax on the benchmark home
Compared as a share of the price. Where the seller pays it, it is a cost of leaving rather than arriving.
$860 (seller pays)NoneDallas
Rent control
A cap protects a sitting tenant and does nothing for the next lease, so neither column is simply better.
Forbidden by state lawForbidden by state lawNot directly comparable

Charlotte: About 0.70% of market value. Charlotte levies 0.7857%: Mecklenburg County's 49.27¢ plus the City's 29.30¢ per $100, but against a value frozen at the 1 January 2023 revaluation. North Carolina measures that gap itself: the Department of Revenue certifies Mecklenburg's assessment level at 88.78% of sale price, which is how it publishes an effective county rate of 0.4374% against a nominal 0.4927%. The next revaluation takes effect 1 January 2027, and it will move assessments to what houses are worth then, not to what you paid. Dallas: About 1.58% of value for a homesteaded owner, worked out on the $469,900 median single-family sale price. A house in the City of Dallas and Dallas ISD is taxed by five units for 2025, which add to 2.22671 per $100 before any exemption. Each takes its own homestead exemption off the appraised value first: Dallas ISD the state's $140,000 and a further 10% of its own, and Dallas County, the City, Dallas College and the Parkland Hospital District 20% each. So Dallas County levies 0.2155 per $100 on $375,920 after a $93,980 exemption, $810; City of Dallas levies 0.6988 per $100 on $375,920 after a $93,980 exemption, $2,627; Dallas ISD levies 0.993835 per $100 on $282,910 after a $186,990 exemption, $2,812; Dallas College levies 0.106575 per $100 on $375,920 after a $93,980 exemption, $401; Parkland Hospital District levies 0.212 per $100 on $375,920 after a $93,980 exemption, $797. The five come to $7,446 a year, 1.58% of the price. Without a homestead, as a landlord or a buyer who never files, the same house owes $10,463. The appraisal district's own typical homestead is cheaper than the typical sale: its certified median market value for a City of Dallas homestead was $364,530 for the 2025 appraisal year, the value on 1 January 2025 these rates were levied on, and $364,000 for 2026. On $364,530 the same five units come to $5,465, 1.50%, lower because the school district's flat exemption is a larger share of a cheaper house. These are the 2025 rates, the bills due by 31 January 2026. The appraisal district's 2026 table was still its estimate of 4 March 2026 when these figures were retrieved, so the calculators stay on 2025 until the five units' 2026 rates are published.

02: Crime and safety

How safe each city is, by the numbers it publishes

Police-reported figures for the most recent year each force or statistics agency has released. Rates describe a whole city or metro area, and the spread between neighbourhoods inside one city is usually wider than the gap between the two cities.

Crime
MeasureCharlotteDallasAdvantage
Crime Severity Index
Statistics Canada's weighted index for the metropolitan area, where 100 is Canada in 2006. American cities have no equivalent series.
Not publishedNot publishedNot directly comparable
Violent crime per 100,000607 (2025)577 (2025)Dallas
Property crime per 100,0003,639 (2025)3,081 (2025)Dallas
Homicides
Counts, not rates, and a single year in a small city moves a long way on chance alone. What each figure covers is under the table.
96 (2025)140 (2025)Not directly comparable
Charlotte

CMPD's 15 January 2026 year-end report put overall crime down 9% in 2025, violent crime down 21% (5,852 offenses versus 7,436 in 2024) and property crime down 6%, with homicides falling from 110 to 96, robberies down 24% and vehicle thefts down from 7,442 to 5,960. Homicides had been above 100 a year since 2020, so 2025 was the first clear drop in several years; the August 2025 killing of a passenger on the LYNX Blue Line kept transit safety in the news despite the citywide numbers.

What the rates cover: 5,852 violent offenses (UCR summary definitions) reported by CMPD for 2025, divided by the 964,784 city population estimate. CMPD's jurisdiction is the city plus unincorporated Mecklenburg County, so the true rate per resident is slightly lower.

Homicides: 96 homicides in 2025 versus 110 in 2024, about 10 per 100,000 on the city population; CMPD reports a 79% clearance rate.

Dallas

On the FBI's definitions, violent offenses in Dallas went from 11,181 in 2021 to 10,255 in 2022, 9,025 in 2023, 8,747 in 2024 and 7,674 in 2025, a 12% drop in the last year and 31% in four, and property offenses from 46,991 to 49,224, a peak of 52,641 in 2023, then 45,106 and 40,962, 22% below the peak. Motor vehicle theft drove most of that swing: 11,818 in 2021, 18,457 in 2023 and 11,162 in 2025. In 2025 the CDE shows aggravated assaults down 12% (5,826 to 5,144), robberies down 10% (2,235 to 2,020), rapes down 27% (505 to 370) and murders down 23% (181 to 140). On its own definitions DPD reported violent crime down 12%, robberies down 10%, aggravated assaults down 12% and sexual assaults down 13%. The 2025 CDE counts were read on 27 September 2026 from a feed last refreshed on 15 September and can still be revised.

What the rates cover: Computed: 7,674 violent offenses (murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) in the FBI Crime Data Explorer's summarized data for the Dallas Police Department (ORI TXDPD0000) in calendar 2025, divided by the 1,329,491 Vintage 2025 city population. On the CDE's own agency population of 1,331,217 the rate is 576. DPD does not publish a total on this definition. The violent crime its Violent Crime Reduction Plan tracks is murder, robbery and aggravated assault, with family-violence and other aggravated assaults counted separately and rape left out. Its public incident dataset on Dallas OpenData, which the city describes as a research copy rather than the authoritative count, lists only 57 murder incidents and 12 family-violence aggravated assault incidents for 2025, so it cannot rebuild either total.

Homicides: 140 murders and nonnegligent manslaughters in 2025 in the FBI CDE, against 181 in 2024, about 10.5 per 100,000 on the city population. DPD's own year-end count was 141 homicides against 184 in 2024, a 23% drop (CBS Texas, February 2026); nothing fetched explains the gaps of one and three cases between the two series. The high point in the CDE series since 2021 is 244, in 2023.

03: Climate

Winters, summers and what the weather can do to a house

Climate normals
MeasureCharlotteDallasAdvantage
January mean5.6 °C8.8 °CNot directly comparable
July mean26.7 °C30.7 °CNot directly comparable
Precipitation a year1,107 mm973 mmNot directly comparable
Snowfall a year9 cm4 cmNot directly comparable
Sunshine a year2,821 hours2,850 hoursDallas
Charlotte

NOAA 1991-2020 normals for Charlotte Douglas International Airport (station USW00013881): January mean 42.1F, July mean 80.1F, annual mean 61.4F, 43.60 in of precipitation, 3.5 in of snow. July is the warmest month at 80.1F, ahead of August's 78.6F. The set this file carried until September 2026 was an older normal under the 1991-2020 label: a degree low in January and in July, and a fifth high on snow. Sunshine hours are the older 1961-1990 NCDC means (2,821 hours, 62% of possible) since the 1991-2020 normals do not include sunshine.

Hazards: Humid subtropical: long hot summers with regular thunderstorms, mild winters with occasional ice storms that close the city for a day or two, and remnant tropical systems (Hugo in 1989 hit Charlotte directly; Helene in 2024 devastated the mountains two hours west but mostly spared Charlotte). Flash flooding along creeks and summer heat indexes above 100F are the routine risks; wildfire smoke is rare.

Dallas

NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 normals for Dallas Love Field (station USW00013960), the city's own climate station about 6 miles northwest of downtown: January mean 47.8F, July mean 87.3F, annual mean 68.0F, 38.32 in of precipitation, 1.7 in of snow. July and August tie as the warmest months at 87.3F, with mean highs of 96.9F and 97.1F, and January's mean low is 37.9F. October (4.79 in) and May (4.57 in) are the wettest months and July (1.71 in) the driest, and most of the snow falls in February (0.9 in). The normals count 107.5 days a year at 90F or above, 22.4 at 100F or above and 23.1 nights at or below freezing. Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (USW00003927), where the National Weather Service keeps the metro's official record, averages 46.3F in January and 85.7F in July with 37.01 in of rain and 1.6 in of snow, 20.3 days at 100F or above and 29.2 nights at or below freezing. Converted here to 8.8 C, 30.7 C, 973 mm and 4.3 cm. That July mean is the warmest of any city this site compares, 1.5F (0.8 C) above Austin's at Camp Mabry. Sunshine hours are the older 1961-1990 NCDC means (2,850 hours, 61% of possible), since the 1991-2020 normals do not include sunshine.

Hazards: Heat is the constant. The normals give Love Field 22.4 days a year at or above 100F (37.8 C); its record since 1939 is 73 such days in 2011, including 40 in a row from 2 July to 10 August, and its highest reading is 112F (44.4 C), on 26 and 27 June 1980 and again on 22 July 2018. At DFW Airport the record is 71 days in 2011 and the longest run 42, from 23 June to 3 August 1980, when the airport reached 113F (45.0 C). The summer of 2026 is among the hottest on record: by 22 September Love Field had 54 days at 100F or above, fourth in its record, and DFW 52, tied for fifth, 27 of them in August. Hail is the costly routine hazard. NOAA's billion-dollar disaster list counts a North Texas hailstorm on 23 and 24 March 2016 at $2.06 billion in 2016 dollars, and on 11 April 2016 a supercell dropped hailstones up to 5.25 in (13.3 cm), the record for the NWS Fort Worth area, and hit 80% of the homes in Wylie, northeast of the city; Cotality counted more than 235,000 Texas homes hit by damaging hail in 2025, far more than in any other state. Tornadoes reach the city itself. On 20 October 2019 an EF3 with winds near 140 mph (225 km/h) tracked 15.76 miles (25.4 km) from near I-35E and Walnut Hill Lane through Preston Hollow to US 75 and on into Richardson, damaging a high school, a middle school and an elementary school, destroying about 118 structures and doing $1.55 billion of damage without a death; on 26 December 2015 an EF4 killed 10 people in Sunnyvale, Garland and Rowlett in eastern Dallas County. The Trinity River passes downtown between 23 miles (37 km) of levees 29 to 32 ft (8.8 to 9.8 m) high, completed in 1932 and upgraded by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1950s. The river's record crest at Dallas, 52.6 ft (16.0 m), came in the flood of May 1908, before them; the highest since was 47.1 ft (14.4 m) in May 1990, and by November 2023 the Corps had raised the West levee to carry 277,000 cubic feet (7,844 cubic meters) a second, with the East levee still to do. Flash floods on the creeks are the more frequent danger: on 21 and 22 August 2022, 9.19 in (233 mm) fell at DFW Airport in 24 hours, second only to 9.57 in (243 mm) in September 1932, 9.14 in (232 mm) fell at Love Field and 15.16 in (385 mm) at a gauge on White Rock Creek at Scyene Road, and at least one person died. Cold is rare and badly handled when it comes. Winter Storm Uri left 5.3 in (13.5 cm) of snow at Love Field from 14 to 17 February 2021 and a low of 2F (-16.7 C) on the 16th, matched there only in January 1949 and beaten only in January 1940 (0F, -17.8 C) and December 1989 (1F, -17.2 C); DFW Airport fell to -2F (-18.9 C), the lowest in its record since 1953. ERCOT cut power across the state grid from 15 to 18 February and about 4.5 million customers lost it at the worst; Texas counted 246 deaths from the storm, 22 of them in Dallas County. In January 2026 Winter Storm Fern brought 2.4 in (6.1 cm) of snow and sleet to DFW Airport and lows of 13F (-10.6 C), and the grid held. Drought is the slow hazard. The seven water supply lakes the Texas Water Development Board counts for the Dallas area stood at 86.5% of conservation capacity on 27 September 2026, down from 98.7% at the end of June; in the 2011 to 2015 drought they fell to 62.7% before the rains of 2015 filled them. Dallas has capped lawn watering at twice a week since April 2012.

04: Income, jobs and taxes

What people earn and what the government takes

Income and taxes
MeasureCharlotteDallasAdvantage
Median household income$86,416 USD (2024)$74,323 USD (2024)Charlotte
Unemployment rate3.7% (June 2026)4.2% (July 2026)Charlotte
Sales tax8.25%8.25%Even
Top marginal income tax
Federal plus provincial or state. The American figure leaves out payroll taxes and the cost of health insurance, both of which a Canadian household covers through the tax it pays here.
41.25%37%Dallas
Income tax on $100,000, single filer
Computed from each jurisdiction's brackets at a single filer's $100,000 and rounded to the dollar, so a gap of a dollar is rounding rather than tax. Two cities in one province or state are shown as Even, because there the two cells describe the same tax and whatever separates them is method.
$17,158 USD$13,449 USDDallas
Charlotte

BLS counted 1,413,000 nonfarm jobs in the Charlotte MSA in June 2026, up 1.6% on the year, with construction (+9.0%) and education and health (+3.5%) growing fastest and manufacturing (-3.6%) and information (-5.8%) shrinking. Financial activities employ 128,500, a much larger share than in most metros of this size; average weekly wages in Q4 2025 were $1,515 against $1,569 nationally.

Main sectors: Banking and financial services (Bank of America HQ, Truist, Wells Fargo east coast hub), Professional and business services, Trade, transportation and logistics (CLT hub, distribution), Health care (Atrium Health, Novant Health), Construction and manufacturing (energy, motorsports).

North Carolina's flat rate drops in steps: 4.25% (2025), 3.99% (2026), with further cuts after 2026 tied to revenue triggers. Mecklenburg property tax is separate and was revalued in 2023.

Dallas

BLS counted 4,353,400 nonfarm jobs in the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA in July 2026 (not seasonally adjusted), up 54,000 or 1.3% on the year. Professional and business services (+3.0%, to 805,200) and leisure and hospitality (+3.0%) grew fastest, then mining, logging and construction and education and health services (both +2.0%), while information (-2.8%), financial activities (-1.0%) and manufacturing (-0.7%) shrank. Trade, transportation and utilities is the largest sector at 895,000 jobs, and government employs 465,400. The seasonally adjusted series (FRED DALL148NA) was 4,363,400 in August 2026, 1.1% above August 2025. Average weekly wages across the metro were $1,785 in the first quarter of 2026 against $1,654 nationally. The Dallas Regional Chamber counts 21 Fortune 500 headquarters in the region as of 2025 and 44 in the Fortune 1000, among them AT&T, Texas Instruments, American Airlines, Kimberly-Clark, Toyota Motor North America and McKesson.

Main sectors: Trade, transportation and utilities, the metro's largest sector (DFW Airport, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, BNSF Railway), Corporate headquarters and professional and business services (AT&T, Texas Instruments, McKesson, Kimberly-Clark, Toyota Motor North America), Financial activities (the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Charles Schwab, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America), Health care and education (Baylor Scott & White Health, Texas Health Resources, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Children's Health), Aerospace and advanced manufacturing (Lockheed Martin, Bell Textron, Raytheon, Texas Instruments).

Property tax is the local levy that matters. Tax Foundation puts Texas's effective property tax rate on owner-occupied homes at 1.40%, and school districts must exempt $140,000 of a homestead's value from their tax. The City of Dallas's own rate for the fiscal year that starts on 1 October 2026 is 69.78 cents per $100 of taxable value, down from 69.88 cents, the eleventh cut in a row, in a $5.66 billion budget. Proposition U, a charter amendment Dallas voters approved in November 2024, requires the council to put at least half of each year's revenue growth into the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System, with any remainder of that half going to police pay and to a force of at least 4,000 officers; the budget adopted in September 2026 funds 3,651 officers by the end of September 2027 and 3,800 a year later. The county, school district and other levies on the same bill belong to the housing layer.

05: Getting around

Whether you need a car

Transit
MeasureCharlotteDallasAdvantage
SystemCharlotte Area Transit System (CATS): LYNX Blue Line light rail (19 miles, Uptown to UNC Charlotte and I-485/South Blvd), CityLYNX Gold Line streetcar, local and express busesDART buses (nearly 700 vehicles), four light rail lines on 93 miles of track, the 26-mile Silver Line commuter rail from Plano to DFW Airport (opened October 2025), the Trinity Railway Express to Fort Worth run with Trinity Metro, the Dallas Streetcar and GoLink on-demand zonesNot directly comparable
Commute by public transit2.3% (2024)2.0% (2024)Charlotte
Walk or cycle to work2.4% (2024)2.5% (2024)Dallas
AirportCharlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT), 53.6 million passengers in 2025, second busiest year after 58.8 million in 2024; an American Airlines hub where about 65% of passengers connect.Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), 85,660,127 passengers in 2025, 2.5% fewer than 2024's 87,817,864, per the airport's December 2025 traffic report; 12.65 million of them were international and American Airlines carried 82.6%. ACI World ranked it the fourth-busiest airport in the world by passengers in 2025 and third by aircraft movements. Dallas Love Field (DAL), about 6 miles northwest of downtown and the birthplace and headquarters of Southwest Airlines, handled 16,899,203 passengers in 2025, 5.5% fewer than in 2024 (FAA figures as cited by Wikipedia; the airport's website refused the fetcher).Not directly comparable
Charlotte

CATS carried about 15.7 million passenger trips in calendar 2024, up 11% on 2023 but still only about 65% of 2019 levels; bus ridership has lost roughly 65% of riders since 2013 while the Blue Line was at about 70% of its 2019 ridership (WFAE, February 2025). A November 2025 referendum passed 52.3% to 47.7% and adds a 1 cent sales tax from July 2026 expected to raise about $19.4 billion over 30 years, split 40% roads, 40% rail and 20% bus; the Red Line commuter rail to Lake Norman comes first, then the Silver Line light rail to the airport. A state audit in August 2026 estimated 45% of riders do not pay fares.

Dallas

DART carried 52,823,800 unlinked trips in 2025, 28,151,100 of them by bus and 21,611,600 on light rail, and about 157,300 a weekday in the second quarter of 2026, 65,300 of them on light rail (APTA ridership reports, as cited by Wikipedia; APTA's PDFs refused the fetcher). DART's own figure is more than 171,000 passengers a day across a 700-square-mile, 12-city service area. The Trinity Railway Express, which DART runs with Fort Worth's Trinity Metro, carried 1,337,600 trips in 2025 (APTA, same source). The Silver Line opened on 25 October 2025 through Plano, Richardson, Dallas, Addison, Carrollton, Coppell and Grapevine to DFW Airport, every 30 minutes at weekday peaks and hourly otherwise. DART is paid for by a 1% sales tax in its member cities, and the suburbs have pushed back on what they pay: Plano, Irving and Farmers Branch canceled withdrawal elections set for May 2026 after agreements that return part of their sales tax over six years for local transportation projects, Addison and University Park voted to stay, and Highland Park voted by 70% to leave, with service ending on 14 May 2026.

06: Daily life

Health care, schools and what each city is like

Charlotte

Health care

Care is paid for through employer or individual private insurance, Medicare and Medicaid (North Carolina expanded Medicaid in December 2023), and uninsured adults still face full charges at hospitals. Two systems dominate: Atrium Health (part of Advocate Health, with Carolinas Medical Center as the region's Level I trauma centre and a new Wake Forest University School of Medicine campus in Charlotte) and Novant Health (Presbyterian Medical Center); primary care and specialist wait times run weeks rather than months, and costs depend far more on your plan than on the provider.

Education

UNC Charlotte enrolled a record 32,207 students in fall 2025 and is the city's main research university; Davidson College, Queens University, Johnson C. Smith University and Central Piedmont Community College round out the options. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is a single county-wide district of roughly 140,000 students with a large magnet lottery system and a sizeable charter sector; enrollment fell to its lowest level since 2010-11 in 2025-26, and school quality varies sharply by neighbourhood.

Living there

Charlotte is a banking city that grew fast and recently: most of what you see was built after 1990, the Uptown skyline is compact and quiet after office hours, and daily life runs through car-oriented suburbs like Ballantyne, University City and the Lake Norman towns. South End and NoDa along the Blue Line are where the walkable apartment-and-brewery growth has concentrated. Summers are hot and humid, traffic on I-77 and I-485 is the main complaint, and the city is still working out what transit, schools and housing it wants to be as it passes a million residents.

Dallas

Health care

Care is paid for through employer or marketplace insurance, Medicare and Medicaid, and Texas is one of the ten states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (KFF, August 2026). It had the highest uninsured rate of any state in 2024: 16.7%, or 5,152,427 of 30,799,312 people, against 8.2% nationally and 12.0% in Georgia, the next highest, on the ACS 2024 1-year estimates. The City of Dallas's rate was 22.7% (297,684 of 1,313,770), Dallas County's 21.9% and the metro's 16.2%. Parkland Memorial Hospital, licensed for 983 beds, is Dallas County's only public hospital and UT Southwestern's primary teaching hospital; it became the first certified Level I trauma center in Texas in 1983 and runs a burn center. UT Southwestern Medical Center, whose faculty have received six Nobel Prizes, runs William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital in the Southwestern Medical District, and more than half the doctors practicing in Dallas trained there at least in part. Baylor University Medical Center, which opened in 1903 and is now the North Texas flagship of Baylor Scott & White Health, has 914 beds and a Level I trauma center that Baylor Scott & White describes as one of only three adult trauma centers in Dallas. Children's Health and UT Southwestern broke ground in October 2024 on a $5 billion pediatric campus with 552 beds to replace Children's Medical Center Dallas, projected to open in 2031. This file did not verify a wait time figure for primary or specialist care.

Education

Dallas ISD, the second-largest school district in Texas, opened the 2026-27 year on 11 August with about 132,000 students, down from about 134,300 a year earlier (KERA). Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde blamed federal immigration policy in part. KERA adds that charter schools and the state's new education savings accounts may account for some of the loss; more than 2,800 students in the district had qualified for the accounts, which help pay private school tuition, on the Comptroller's latest count. The district made pre-kindergarten free for all 3- and 4-year-olds this year and enrolled about 11,000 children in it, and the Texas Education Agency rated the district B for 2025. Southern Methodist University (12,544 students in fall 2025) is in University Park, a separate town north of downtown, the University of Texas at Dallas is in Richardson, and Dallas College runs seven campuses in Dallas County.

Living there

Dallas is the corporate and financial center of the fourth-largest metro in the country, and the metro is growing around the city rather than inside it. The Dallas-Fort Worth area added 123,557 people in 2024-25, more than any metro but Houston, while the city lost 1,808 and Dallas County lost 46,226 more residents to the rest of the country than it gained, so newcomers settle in Collin, Denton and Kaufman counties. The city has 93 miles of DART light rail and, since October 2025, a commuter line to DFW Airport, yet 68.6% of its workers drive alone and 2.0% take transit. Summer is the hard season: the July mean at Love Field is 87.3F, the warmest of any city this site compares, and the station had 54 days at 100F or more by late September 2026. Hail and tornadoes are the costly weather. Texas takes no income tax, and 22.7% of the city's residents have no health insurance. The open question is whether the city can hold up its end as the region spreads outward: three suburbs won back part of the sales tax they pay DART and a fourth voted to leave, voters wrote a minimum of 4,000 police officers into the charter in 2024 and the adopted budget plans for 3,800 by September 2028, and Dallas ISD began 2026-27 with about 2,300 fewer students than the year before.

07: The trade-offs

Where each city wins, and where it loses

Both cities price in US dollars, so the figures net directly, and the two prices are close to the same instrument. Charlotte's is the Canopy MLS median of what sold inside the city limits, $430,000 in July 2026, 2.3% below a year earlier; Dallas's is the NTREIS median of single-family houses sold in the city, $469,900 in August, 6.0% below. They are 5.0 and about 6.3 times each city's 2024 median household income. At 20% down, Charlotte's $344,000 loan at 6.67%, Freddie Mac's rate for 13 August 2026, is $2,213 a month, and Dallas's $375,920 loan at 7.03%, the rate for 24 September, about $2,509. Property tax is about $3,010 a year in Charlotte, 0.70% of price, against $7,448 from Dallas's five taxing units, an effective 1.58% with a homestead and $10,463 without. Insurance is budgeted at $180 and $400 a month, the Dallas figure set by hail. The three lines come to about $2,644 and $3,529, roughly 37% and 57% of local median income; at the same 7.03% Charlotte's would be about $2,727. On the same RentCafe series for August 2026 a one-bedroom averaged $1,470 in Charlotte and $1,416 in Dallas, and a two-bedroom $1,781 and $1,853.

Dallas's rates are the lower ones on violent and property crime, and homicide is level. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police counted 5,852 violent offenses in 2025 on UCR summary definitions, about 607 per 100,000 on the city's 964,784 residents, and 35,112 property offenses, about 3,639. Dallas's are the FBI's summarized counts for the Dallas Police Department, used because DPD publishes no total on those definitions and its own violent crime measure leaves rape out: 7,674 violent offenses of murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, 577 per 100,000, and 40,962 property offenses, 3,081. Charlotte recorded 96 homicides, about 10 per 100,000, against 110 in 2024; Dallas recorded 140 in the federal file, about 10.5, and 141 on DPD's own count, against 184 in 2024. Both improved in 2025. Violent crime dropped 21% in Charlotte and 12% in Dallas, where it has dropped 31% in four years, and vehicle thefts went from 7,442 to 5,960 in Charlotte and from a peak of 18,457 in 2023 to 11,162 in Dallas. CMPD's patch includes unincorporated Mecklenburg, which pushes Charlotte's rates up a little, and the Dallas counts were read on 27 September 2026 from a federal feed that can still be revised.

Dallas is warmer in both seasons. July averages 30.7 C at Love Field, the warmest July mean of the fourteen cities this site compares, against 26.7 C at Charlotte Douglas, and January 8.8 C against 5.6 C, with 4.3 cm of snow a year against 8.9 cm. Charlotte is wetter, 1,107 mm against 973 mm, and the two are about equally sunny on the older 1961-1990 series, 2,850 hours against 2,821. The profiles measure the heat differently. Charlotte's routine risk is summer heat indexes above 100F, humidity included; Love Field's normals count 22.4 days a year when the air itself reaches 100F (37.8 C), and 2026 had 54 by 22 September. Charlotte's other hazards are the ice storm that closes the city for a day or two and remnant tropical systems: Hugo hit directly in 1989, and Helene devastated the mountains two hours west in 2024 but mostly spared the city. Dallas's are hail, with stones up to 5.25 in (13.3 cm) in an April 2016 supercell, tornadoes such as the October 2019 EF3, and the rare hard freeze, as in February 2021, when Winter Storm Uri brought 2F (-16.7 C) and ERCOT cut power across the state grid.

The Dallas labor market is about three times the size of Charlotte's and a little looser. The Dallas-Fort Worth metro had 4,353,400 nonfarm jobs in July 2026, 1.3% more than a year earlier, and 4.2% unemployment, seasonally adjusted; the Charlotte metro had 1,413,000 in June, 1.6% more, and 3.7%. Charlotte is a banking city, with 128,500 jobs in financial activities around Bank of America, Truist and Wells Fargo. The Dallas region counts 21 Fortune 500 headquarters, AT&T and American Airlines among them. Average weekly wages were $1,515 in Charlotte in the fourth quarter of 2025, below the national $1,569, and $1,785 in Dallas in the first quarter of 2026, against $1,654. City median household incomes run the other way, $86,416 in Charlotte and $74,323 in Dallas in 2024. The tax story is North Carolina's flat income tax against none. A single filer on $100,000 pays about $17,158 in Charlotte for 2025, $3,709 of it to the state, and $13,449 in Dallas. Sales tax is 8.25% in both. Property tax runs the other way: on the two medians, a single filer would need about $117,000 of income before North Carolina's 4.25% took as much as Dallas's extra $4,438 a year.

Neither is a transit city, though Dallas has far more track. In 2024, 2.0% of Dallas workers took transit and 2.5% walked or cycled, against 2.3% and 2.4% in Charlotte, and 68.6% of Dallas workers drove alone. DART runs four light rail lines on 93 miles of track, nearly 700 buses and, since October 2025, the 26-mile Silver Line from Plano to DFW Airport, and it carried 52,823,800 trips in 2025, 21,611,600 of them on light rail. CATS carried about 15.7 million in 2024, roughly 65% of its 2019 level, on the 19-mile LYNX Blue Line and buses. The money is moving in opposite directions. Mecklenburg voters added a 1 cent sales tax, collected since July 2026 and expected to raise about $19.4 billion over 30 years, 40% of it for rail. DART runs on a 1% sales tax in its member cities, and Plano, Irving and Farmers Branch won back part of what they pay while Highland Park voted to leave. American Airlines dominates both airports: CLT, one of its hubs, handled 53.6 million passengers in 2025, and DFW 85,660,127, 82.6% of them on American, with 16,899,203 more at Love Field.

Health coverage is where the state line shows. North Carolina expanded Medicaid on 1 December 2023, and from 1 January 2027 most expansion adults face a work requirement of 80 hours a month. Texas is one of the ten states that have not expanded it and had the highest uninsured rate of any state in 2024, 16.7%; the City of Dallas's was 22.7%. Charlotte's systems are Atrium Health, whose Carolinas Medical Center is the region's Level I trauma center, with a new Wake Forest medical school campus, and Novant Health. Dallas has Parkland Memorial Hospital, the county's only public hospital, UT Southwestern's primary teaching hospital and the first certified Level I trauma center in Texas, and Baylor University Medical Center, which runs another. Charlotte's profile puts primary care and specialist waits in weeks; Dallas's did not verify a wait time. Both districts are shrinking. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, with roughly 140,000 students, fell to its lowest enrollment since 2010-11 in 2025-26. Dallas ISD, the second-largest district in Texas, opened 2026-27 with about 132,000 students against about 134,300 a year earlier, made pre-kindergarten free for all 3- and 4-year-olds and was rated B by the state for 2025.

What people underestimate is which of the two cities is actually growing. Charlotte grew 10.3% from 2020 to 2025, as fast as its metro, and added 20,731 residents in the last year, the largest numeric gain of any US city. The Dallas metro grew 11.0% to 8,477,157 and added 123,557 people in 2024-25, second only to Houston, but the city grew 1.9% to 1,329,491 and lost 1,808 residents that year, while Dallas County lost 46,226 more people to the rest of the country than it gained and Collin, Denton and Kaufman counties took the newcomers. So Dallas's $7,448 is the bill for an address inside the City of Dallas and Dallas ISD; a house in Collin County or another school district pays a different stack. Neither seller's bill is a guide. Texas lets a homestead's appraised value rise no more than 10% a year, but a buyer starts at full value and has to file for the exemptions. Mecklenburg revalues on 1 January 2027 from assessments the state measured at 88.78% of sale prices, so Charlotte's $3,010 has further to move too. And the two carries were priced a month apart: at August's 6.67%, Dallas's would be about $3,439.

Charlotte

Better here

  • Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $2,644 a month on the July 2026 median, roughly 37% of the city's 2024 median household income, and about $2,727 at September's 7.03%, against $3,529 and 57% in Dallas.
  • Property tax on the median is about $3,010 a year for fiscal 2027, 0.70% of price, against $7,448 and an effective 1.58% on Dallas's median for the 2025 tax year.
  • The city grew 10.3% from 2020 to 2025 and added 20,731 residents in 2024-25, the largest numeric gain of any US city, while Dallas lost 1,808.
  • North Carolina expanded Medicaid in December 2023, where Texas has not and had the highest uninsured rate of any state in 2024, 16.7%, with the City of Dallas at 22.7%.
  • July averages 26.7 C on the 1991-2020 normals against 30.7 C at Love Field, where the same normals count 22.4 days a year at or above 100F (37.8 C).
  • Metro unemployment was 3.7% in June 2026, seasonally adjusted, against 4.2% in Dallas-Fort Worth in July, and the city's median household income was $86,416 in 2024 against $74,323.

Worse here

  • Violent crime ran about 607 per 100,000 and property crime about 3,639 in 2025, against 577 and 3,081 in Dallas, though CMPD's patch includes unincorporated Mecklenburg.
  • A single filer on $100,000 pays about $17,158 in income tax for 2025, $3,709 of it to North Carolina, against $13,449 of federal tax alone in Dallas.
  • Average weekly wages were $1,515 in the fourth quarter of 2025, below the national $1,569, against $1,785 in Dallas in the first quarter of 2026.
  • The metro's 1,413,000 nonfarm jobs are about a third of Dallas-Fort Worth's 4,353,400, and they lean on banking, with 128,500 in financial activities.
  • CATS carried about 15.7 million trips in 2024, roughly 65% of 2019, on 19 miles of light rail, against DART's 52,823,800 trips in 2025 on 93 miles.
  • January averages 5.6 C with 8.9 cm of snow a year on the 1991-2020 normals and the occasional ice storm that closes the city, against 8.8 C and 4.3 cm in Dallas.

Choose Charlotte if

  • you want to own a house on a median income, at about 37% of it a month rather than about 57%
  • you work in banking or corporate finance and want 128,500 financial jobs inside one metro
  • you may need Medicaid, or work in a job with thin health coverage
  • you would rather have a 26.7 C July than a summer with about 22 days a year at 100F

The Charlotte guide · Neighborhoods · Charlotte rent vs buy · Charlotte mortgage calculator

Dallas

Better here

  • Violent crime was 577 per 100,000 and property crime 3,081 in 2025 on the FBI's counts, against about 607 and 3,639 in Charlotte, and violent offenses dropped 31% in four years.
  • Texas levies no income tax, so $100,000 pays $13,449 in federal tax for 2025 and $13,170 for 2026, against about $17,158 in Charlotte for 2025.
  • Average weekly wages in the metro were $1,785 in the first quarter of 2026, against $1,654 nationally and Charlotte's $1,515 at the end of 2025.
  • The metro had 4,353,400 nonfarm jobs in July 2026, about three times Charlotte's, and the region counts 21 Fortune 500 headquarters.
  • DFW handled 85,660,127 passengers in 2025 and Love Field another 16,899,203, against 53.6 million at CLT.
  • DART runs 93 miles of light rail and, since October 2025, the Silver Line to DFW Airport, and carried 52,823,800 trips in 2025 against about 15.7 million on CATS in 2024.

Worse here

  • Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $3,529 a month on the August 2026 median, roughly 57% of the city's 2024 median household income, and about $3,439 at August's 6.67%, against $2,644 and 37% in Charlotte.
  • Property tax on the median house is $7,448 a year for the 2025 tax year with a homestead, an effective 1.58%, and $10,463 without one, against about $3,010 and 0.70% in Charlotte.
  • There were 140 homicides in 2025, about 10.5 per 100,000, against 96 and about 10 in Charlotte.
  • Texas had the highest uninsured rate of any state in 2024, 16.7%, the City of Dallas's was 22.7%, and in August 2026 Texas was one of ten states that have not expanded Medicaid.
  • July averages 30.7 C, the warmest July mean of the fourteen cities this site compares, and Love Field had 54 days at or above 100F (37.8 C) by 22 September 2026.
  • Home insurance is budgeted at $400 a month against $180 in Charlotte, because North Texas hail is a routine cost and tornadoes reach the city itself, as in October 2019.

Choose Dallas if

  • you want a labor market of 4,353,400 jobs in corporate headquarters, finance, logistics or aerospace, with pay above the national average
  • you rent, or earn more than about $117,000, the point where no state income tax outweighs the extra property tax on the median house
  • you fly often enough that an airport handling 85,660,127 passengers in 2025 changes how you travel
  • you want an 8.8 C January and can plan a summer around days at 100F

The Dallas guide · Neighborhoods · Dallas rent vs buy · Dallas mortgage calculator

08: Questions people ask

Charlotte or Dallas, in short

Is Charlotte or Dallas cheaper to live in?

Charlotte, to own. Both cities price in US dollars, so the figures net directly. Charlotte's median sale price was $430,000 in July 2026 and the Dallas single-family median $469,900 in August, 5.0 and about 6.3 times each city's median household income. Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $2,644 a month in Charlotte and $3,529 in Dallas, roughly 37% and 57% of local median income. About $83 of the $885 gap is timing: Charlotte's payment uses August's 6.67% rate and Dallas's September's 7.03%, and at the same rate Charlotte's would be about $2,727. The rest is property tax, $7,448 a year in Dallas against $3,010, insurance at $400 a month against $180, and the price. Renting is close on the same RentCafe series for August 2026: a one-bedroom averaged $1,416 in Dallas and $1,470 in Charlotte, a two-bedroom $1,853 and $1,781, about 30% and 25% of each city's median household income. Sales tax is 8.25% in both, and Charlotte adds North Carolina's income tax, $3,709 on $100,000 for 2025.

Is Charlotte or Dallas safer?

It depends on the measure, and the two are close. Dallas's violent crime rate was 577 per 100,000 in 2025 against about 607 in Charlotte, and its property crime rate 3,081 against about 3,639. Homicide is level: 140 in Dallas, about 10.5 per 100,000, and 96 in Charlotte, about 10. The figures are built differently. Charlotte's are CMPD's own counts on UCR summary definitions over a patch that includes unincorporated Mecklenburg, which pushes its rates up a little. Dallas's are the FBI's summarized counts, because DPD publishes no total on those definitions, and they were read on 27 September 2026 and can still be revised. Both improved in 2025: violent crime dropped 21% in Charlotte and 12% in Dallas, and Dallas's homicides went from 184 to 141 on its police department's own count. Every rate here is a count divided by a Census estimate rather than a published rate.

Which has the better job market, Charlotte or Dallas?

Dallas's is about three times the size and pays more; Charlotte's is tighter. Unemployment was 3.7% in the Charlotte metro in June 2026 and 4.2% in Dallas-Fort Worth in July, both seasonally adjusted, on 1,413,000 nonfarm jobs growing 1.6% and 4,353,400 growing 1.3%. Charlotte's are concentrated in banking, 128,500 in financial activities around Bank of America, Truist and Wells Fargo. Dallas's largest sector is trade, transportation and utilities at 895,000 jobs, around DFW Airport, American Airlines and BNSF Railway, and the region counts 21 Fortune 500 headquarters. Average weekly wages were $1,785 in Dallas in the first quarter of 2026 against $1,654 nationally, and $1,515 in Charlotte in the fourth quarter of 2025 against $1,569. City median household incomes point the other way, $86,416 in Charlotte and $74,323 in Dallas in 2024, though the Dallas metro's $92,733 is above the Charlotte metro's $85,938.

Does Texas having no income tax make Dallas cheaper than Charlotte?

For a renter, yes; for an owner at the median, not until income is well above it. A single filer on $100,000 pays about $17,158 in Charlotte for 2025, $3,709 of it to North Carolina, against $13,449 in federal tax alone in Dallas, and North Carolina's flat rate drops from 4.25% to 3.99% for 2026. Texas collects through property instead. Dallas's five taxing units take $7,448 a year on the median house with a homestead, an effective 1.58%, against about $3,010 on Charlotte's median, 0.70%, a difference of $4,438 a year. On those two medians a single filer would need about $117,000 of income before North Carolina's 4.25% took as much. Sales tax is 8.25% in both, so it does not tip the balance. Both property tax bills can move: Mecklenburg revalues on 1 January 2027, and a Dallas buyer is taxed on full appraised value rather than the seller's capped one.

Sources

Where the figures come from

Housing figures are the ones behind each city's calculators, dated on those pages. The rest are listed here with the date they were retrieved. See the methodology for how facts, estimates and opinion are kept apart.

  1. Population Growth Holds Steady in Midsized Cities Amid Widespread Slowdown (Vintage 2025 city and town estimates) · US Census Bureau · retrieved
    Supports: City population, Five-year growth
  2. 2020 Census, North Carolina: Total Population by Municipality (PL 94-171) · North Carolina General Assembly · retrieved
    Supports: Five-year growth
  3. Resident Population in Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC (MSA) (CGRPOP) · FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (Census Bureau data) · retrieved
    Supports: Metro population, Five-year growth
  4. CMPD End of Year Report: Violent, Property and Overall Crime Decrease · Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department · retrieved
    Supports: Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend
  5. NOAA 1991-2020 US Climate Normals, station USW00013881 Charlotte Douglas International Airport (NCEI data service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved
    Supports: January mean, July mean, Annual precipitation, Annual snowfall, January 42.1F, July 80.1F and August 78.6F from the monthly series, and annual mean 61.4F, precipitation 43.60 in and snowfall 3.5 in from dataset=normals-annualseasonal-1991-2020 for the same station
  6. Average Annual Sunshine in US Cities · Current Results (NCDC Comparative Climatic Data, 1961-1990) · retrieved
    Supports: Sunshine hours
  7. Charlotte, NC profile (ACS 2024 1-year), tables B19013 and B08301 · Census Reporter (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved
    Supports: Median household income, Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share
  8. Unemployment Rate in Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC (MSA) (CHAR737UR) · FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (BLS LAUS) · retrieved
    Supports: Unemployment rate
  9. Charlotte, NC-SC, Area Economic Summary · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved
    Supports: Unemployment rate, Main sectors, Labour market
  10. Important Notice: Mecklenburg County Sales and Use Tax Increase · North Carolina Department of Revenue · retrieved
    Supports: Sales tax
  11. Tax Rate Schedules · North Carolina Department of Revenue · retrieved
    Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
  12. North Carolina Standard Deduction or North Carolina Itemized Deductions · North Carolina Department of Revenue · retrieved
    Supports: Income tax on $100,000
  13. 2025 Tax Brackets and Federal Income Tax Rates · Tax Foundation · retrieved
    Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
  14. CATS sees ridership grow by 11% in last year · WFAE · retrieved
    Supports: Transit ridership
  15. In a historic vote, Mecklenburg transit and transportation sales tax wins approval · WFAE · retrieved
    Supports: Transit ridership, Sales tax
  16. Rapid Response Special Report: Charlotte Area Transit System · North Carolina Office of the State Auditor · retrieved
    Supports: Transit ridership, Crime trend
  17. CLT Welcomes 53.6 Million Passengers in 2025, Second Busiest Year on Record · Charlotte Douglas International Airport · retrieved
    Supports: Airport passengers
  18. UNC Charlotte's enrollment surge sets another record · UNC Charlotte University Communications · retrieved
    Supports: Education
  19. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools enrollment hits lowest since 2010-11 · WSOC-TV · retrieved
    Supports: Education
  20. Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places in Texas: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2025 (SUB-EST2025) · US Census Bureau · retrieved
    Supports: City population, Five-year growth, Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Character
  21. Annual Resident Population Estimates and Components of Change for Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Areas and Their Counties: April 1, 2020 to July 1, 2025 (CBSA-EST2025-ALLDATA) · US Census Bureau · retrieved
    Supports: Metro population, Five-year growth, Character
  22. Crime Data Explorer summarized agency data, Dallas Police Department (TXDPD0000): violent crime, property crime, homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson, 2021-2025 · FBI · retrieved
    Supports: Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend
  23. Violent Crime Reduction Plan Update, Public Safety Committee, June 3, 2025 · Dallas Police Department (City of Dallas) · retrieved
    Supports: Violent crime rate, Crime trend
  24. Police Incidents (Dallas Police Public Data, RMS incidents from June 1, 2014) · City of Dallas OpenData · retrieved
    Supports: Violent crime rate
  25. Dallas sees lowest violent crime numbers since 2015 as chief credits new crime strategies · CBS Texas · retrieved
    Supports: Homicides, Crime trend
  26. US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00013960 Dallas Love Field (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved
    Supports: January mean, July mean, Annual precipitation, Annual snowfall, Climate normals, Climate hazards, Character, January 47.8F, July and August 87.3F from the monthly series, and annual mean 68.0F, precipitation 38.32 in, snowfall 1.7 in and the counts of days at 90F and 100F and nights at freezing from dataset=normals-annualseasonal-1991-2020 for the same station
  27. US Climate Normals 1991-2020, station USW00003927 Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (Access Data Service) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved
    Supports: Climate normals
  28. Global Historical Climatology Network daily summaries, Dallas Love Field (USW00013960), 1939-2026 · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards, Character, 73 days at or above 100F in 2011 and 40 in a row from 2 July to 10 August 2011, 54 in 2026 through 22 September, 112F on 26 and 27 June 1980 and 22 July 2018, 5.3 in of snow from 14 to 17 February 2021, 2F on 16 February 2021, 31 January 1949, 1F on 23 December 1989 and 0F on 23 January 1940, 13F on 25 January 2026
  29. Global Historical Climatology Network daily summaries, Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (USW00003927), 1953-2026 · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards, 113F on 26 and 27 June 1980, -2F on 16 February 2021, 2.4 in of snow and sleet on 24 and 25 January 2026
  30. Dallas/Fort Worth: Annual and Consecutive 100 Degree Days (last updated 22 September 2026) · National Weather Service, Fort Worth/Dallas · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  31. Weather and Climate Billion-Dollar Disasters to affect the U.S. from 1980-2024 (events list) · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  32. April 11th 2016 Hail Storm · National Weather Service, Fort Worth/Dallas · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  33. Cotality 2026 Report: Hail risk now rivals major hurricanes (2026 Severe Convective Storm Risk Report) · Cotality · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  34. North Texas Tornadoes, October 20, 2019 · National Weather Service, Fort Worth/Dallas · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  35. 2019 North Dallas tornado (path length, structures destroyed, damage, casualties) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  36. December 26, 2015 Tornado Outbreak · National Weather Service, Fort Worth/Dallas · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  37. Dallas Levee System · City of Dallas, Trinity River Corridor Project · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  38. Trinity River at Dallas (DALT2), historic crests · NOAA National Water Prediction Service · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  39. Milestone Achievement for Dallas Floodway Project: Providing Flood Risk Management to Communities · US Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District (DVIDS) · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  40. Wettest 24 hours in nearly a century for Dallas-Fort Worth · Yale Climate Connections · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  41. February 2021 Winter Storm-Related Deaths, Texas (mortality surveillance report) · Texas Department of State Health Services · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  42. The Timeline and Events of the February 2021 Texas Electric Grid Blackouts · The University of Texas at Austin Energy Institute · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  43. How the Texas power grid is holding up during the winter storm · CBS Texas · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  44. Energy Secretary Issues Emergency Order to Secure Texas Grid Amid Winter Storm Fern · US Department of Energy · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  45. Dallas Area Reservoirs (daily storage, percent full) · Texas Water Development Board, Water Data for Texas · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  46. Frequently Asked Questions (watering schedule) and City of Dallas Water Conservation Ordinance · Dallas Water Utilities, Save Dallas Water · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  47. ACS 2024 1-year tables B08301 and B19013 for Dallas city and the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved
    Supports: Median household income, Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share, Character
  48. ACS 2024 1-year table B27001 (health insurance coverage) for the 50 states, DC, the US, Dallas County, Dallas city and the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA · Census Reporter API (US Census Bureau ACS) · retrieved
    Supports: Health care, Character
  49. Unemployment Rate in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX (MSA), DALL148UR and DALL148URN · FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (BLS LAUS data) · retrieved
    Supports: Unemployment rate
  50. All Employees: Total Nonfarm in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX (MSA), DALL148NA · FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (BLS CES data) · retrieved
    Supports: Labour market
  51. Dallas-Fort Worth Area Economic Summary · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved
    Supports: Unemployment rate, Main sectors, Labour market
  52. Dallas Regional Economic Development Guide 2026: Major Companies and Headquarters · Dallas Regional Chamber · retrieved
    Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
  53. City Sales and Use Tax (city rate table) · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved
    Supports: Sales tax
  54. Transit Sales and Use Tax (Dallas MTA, effective January 1, 1984) · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved
    Supports: Sales tax, Transit ridership
  55. Sales and Use Tax · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved
    Supports: Sales tax
  56. Texas Tax Rates & Rankings · Tax Foundation · retrieved
    Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000, Tax notes, Character
  57. 2026 Tax Brackets and Federal Income Tax Rates · Tax Foundation · retrieved
    Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
  58. Property Tax Exemptions · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved
    Supports: Tax notes
  59. Dallas approves $5.66 billion budget for 2026-27 fiscal year · Lake Highlands Advocate · retrieved
    Supports: Tax notes, Character
  60. City of Dallas Update on Proposition U, Police and Fire Funding Appropriation · City of Dallas · retrieved
    Supports: Tax notes, Character
  61. About DART (DART facts) · Dallas Area Rapid Transit · retrieved
    Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership, Character
  62. Silver Line Launches Oct. 25, Connecting Seven Cities and DFW Airport with Modern, Reliable Transit · Dallas Area Rapid Transit · retrieved
    Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership, Character
  63. Dallas Area Rapid Transit (citing the APTA Transit Ridership Reports, Q4 2025 and Q2 2026, through Template:American transit ridership) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership
  64. DART services in Richardson, Plano to remain unchanged as Highland Park withdraws · Community Impact · retrieved
    Supports: Transit ridership, Character
  65. DFW Total Passengers, December 2025 (calendar year 2025 vs 2024) · Dallas Fort Worth International Airport · retrieved
    Supports: Airport passengers
  66. World's Busiest Airports: Atlanta Holds, Asia Climbs (2025 passenger and movement rankings) · ACI World · retrieved
    Supports: Airport passengers
  67. Dallas Love Field (2025 passenger totals from the FAA, location, Southwest Airlines) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Airport passengers, Climate normals
  68. Status of State Medicaid Expansion Decisions · KFF · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  69. Parkland Memorial Hospital · UT Southwestern Medical Center · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  70. About the Trauma Center · Parkland Health · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  71. Baylor University Medical Center, part of Baylor Scott & White Health · Baylor Scott & White Health · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  72. Children's Health and UT Southwestern break ground on new Dallas pediatric campus, announce $100 million donation from The Rees-Jones Foundation · UT Southwestern Medical Center · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  73. UT Southwestern and Children's Health receive $25 million from the Harry W. Bass, Jr. Foundation for new pediatric campus · UT Southwestern Medical Center · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  74. New Dallas Pediatric Campus Puts Children First · Southwestern Medical District · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  75. On Dallas ISD's first day of school, enrollment's down, but letter grade may be up · KERA News · retrieved
    Supports: Education, Character
  76. Southern Methodist University (fall 2025 enrollment, University Park) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Education
  77. University of Texas at Dallas (Richardson) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Education
  78. Dallas College (seven campuses in Dallas County) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Education
  79. More choice, steady sales define Charlotte's July housing market · Canopy Realtor® Association / Canopy MLS · retrieved
    Supports: City of Charlotte median sale price of $430,000 in July 2026, down 2.3% year over year, with the year-to-date median also $430,000, Charlotte region median sale price of $410,000, up 1.1% year over year, and Mecklenburg County's $468,500, up 2.0%, City of Charlotte inventory of 3,754 homes, up 15.8%, at 3.7 months of supply against 3.2 a year earlier, City of Charlotte days on market of 40, against 38 a year earlier, Regional medians by type: single-family $420,000, townhome $349,990 and condominium $292,000, all of which are regional rather than city figures
  80. Charlotte, NC average rent and rent trends, August 2026 · RentCafe / Yardi Matrix · retrieved
    Supports: Average Charlotte apartment rent of $1,672 across 949 sq ft, down 0.92% year over year, Average rents of $1,377 studio, $1,470 one-bedroom, $1,781 two-bedroom and $2,117 three-bedroom
  81. Charlotte multifamily market insights, 2026 · Northmarq · retrieved
    Supports: Charlotte apartment vacancy of 6.2%, Approximately 18,000 units under construction, a 6.2% expansion of inventory, More than half of Charlotte apartment properties offering concessions, Eleven consecutive quarters of year-over-year asking rent declines
  82. Fiscal Year 2026 Fair Market Rents · US Department of Housing and Urban Development · retrieved
    Supports: Two-bedroom Fair Market Rent of $1,847 for the Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia NC-SC HUD Metro FMR Area
  83. Tax rates, fiscal year 2027 · Mecklenburg County Office of the Tax Collector · retrieved
    Supports: Mecklenburg County rate of 49.27 cents per $100 of assessed value, unchanged for FY2027, City of Charlotte rate of 29.30 cents per $100, applied on top of the county rate inside the city
  84. Board of County Commissioners adopts $2.6 billion operating budget for FY2027 · Mecklenburg County · retrieved
    Supports: The county property tax rate holds at 49.27 cents per $100 for FY2027
  85. Charlotte City Council adopts the FY2027 budget · WCNC Charlotte · retrieved
    Supports: City property tax rate rising 1.89 cents from 27.41 to 29.30 cents per $100, adopted 8 June 2026, The increase is dedicated to police and fire pay and raises about $85 million
  86. Sales assessment ratio studies as of January 1, 2025 · North Carolina Department of Revenue, Local Government Division · retrieved
    Supports: Mecklenburg County last revalued in 2023, A certified median sales assessment ratio of 88.78%: assessed values are 88.78% of sale prices, An effective county tax rate of 0.4374% against a nominal 0.4927%, computed as rate × assessment level, A coefficient of dispersion of 9.63, among the lowest in the state
  87. Primary Mortgage Market Survey, 13 August 2026 · Freddie Mac · retrieved
    Supports: 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaging 6.67%, against 6.58% a year earlier
  88. Commissioner Causey negotiates settlement on Rate Bureau's homeowners' insurance request · North Carolina Department of Insurance · retrieved
    Supports: Statewide average base rate increases of 7.5% on 1 June 2025 and 7.5% on 1 June 2026, Charlotte territory increases of 9.3% and 9.2%, No further rate filing before June 2027
  89. Conforming loan limit values for 2026 · Federal Housing Finance Agency · retrieved
    Supports: Baseline one-unit conforming loan limit of $832,750 for 2026, which is the limit in Mecklenburg County
  90. NTREIS monthly MLS summary report, August 2026 · North Texas Real Estate Information System and the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University, via the MetroTex Association of REALTORS · retrieved
    Supports: A median single-family sale price of $469,900 in the City of Dallas in August 2026 on 640 sales, against $499,900 on 667 sales in August 2025, A median townhouse sale price of $543,000 on 30 sales, against $475,000 on 42, and a median condominium sale price of $310,000 on 121 sales, against $237,000 on 136, 2,725 active single-family listings and 4.2 months of inventory in the City of Dallas, A median single-family lease of $2,850 a month on 276 leases, City figures by property type only, with no all-types median
  91. Housing market reports · MetroTex Association of REALTORS · retrieved
    Supports: Monthly reports featuring data from the Texas A&M Real Estate Research Center, based on listings of properties physically located within the specified geographic areas
  92. Zillow Home Value Index, all homes, middle tier, smoothed and seasonally adjusted, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved
    Supports: A typical home value of $305,765 for the city of Dallas (region 38128) in August 2026, $310,919 in August 2025, so a fall of 1.7% over the year
  93. Zillow Home Value Index, single-family and condominium series, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved
    Supports: A typical single-family value of $319,987 in the city of Dallas in August 2026, against $324,674 a year earlier, down 1.4%, A typical condominium value of $208,501 in the same month, against $222,477, down 6.3%, from the condominium file at https://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public_csvs/zhvi/City_zhvi_uc_condo_tier_0.33_0.67_sm_sa_month.csv
  94. Dallas, TX average rent and rent trends · RentCafe / Yardi Matrix · retrieved
    Supports: An average Dallas apartment rent of $1,592, down 0.92% from $1,607 a year earlier, updated 31 August 2026, Average rents of $1,245 studio, $1,416 one-bedroom, $1,853 two-bedroom and $2,221 three-bedroom
  95. Zillow Observed Rent Index, all homes plus multifamily, smoothed, by city · Zillow Research · retrieved
    Supports: An observed rent index of $1,591 for the city of Dallas in August 2026, up 0.63% from $1,581 a year earlier
  96. 2025 ad valorem tax rates for Dallas County, revised 5 November 2025 · Dallas Central Appraisal District · retrieved
    Supports: 2025 rates per $100: Dallas County 0.215500, Parkland Hospital 0.212000, Dallas College 0.106575, Dallas 0.698800, Dallas ISD 0.993835, Optional homestead exemptions of 20% for Dallas County, Parkland Hospital, Dallas College and the City of Dallas, and 10% for Dallas ISD, A general homestead exemption of $140,000 for every school district, contingent on the November 2025 constitutional amendment, A calculated local optional homestead value of not less than $5,000, Separate rates and exemptions for Highland Park, University Park, Cockrell Hill and Highland Park ISD
  97. 2026 estimated ad valorem tax rates for Dallas County, revised 4 March 2026 · Dallas Central Appraisal District · retrieved
    Supports: The 2026 table was an estimate, repeating the 2025 rates for the five units, when these figures were retrieved
  98. 2025 and 2026 residence homestead average and median values · Dallas Central Appraisal District · retrieved
    Supports: A certified median residence homestead market value of $364,530 in the City of Dallas for 2025, on 177,599 homesteads, A certified median of $364,000 for 2026, on 172,862 homesteads, in the table dated 22 July 2026
  99. Annual report, 2025 appraisal year · Dallas Central Appraisal District · retrieved
    Supports: 230,276 protests received for the 2025 appraisal year, 180,733 of them residential, and 788,553 appraisal notices mailed, A protest process that begins around 15 April and concludes by 20 July each year
  100. Valuing property: the homestead cap and the circuit breaker limitation · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved
    Supports: A residence homestead's appraised value may not rise more than 10% a year, from the year after the owner first qualifies, A 20% annual limit on the appraised value of non-homestead property valued at $5 million or less, the circuit breaker, which expires on 31 December 2026
  101. Tax Code, Section 41.44: notice of protest · Texas Legislature · retrieved
    Supports: A protest must be filed by 15 May or the 30th day after the appraisal notice is delivered, whichever is later
  102. Midtown Improvement District · City of Dallas Office of Economic Development · retrieved
    Supports: The Midtown Improvement District, formerly the Vickery Meadow Public Improvement District, established in 1993 and renewed to 31 December 2032, An annual budget and assessment rate subject to a public hearing and Dallas City Council approval
  103. Public Improvement Districts (PIDs) layer · City of Dallas · retrieved
    Supports: Public improvement districts mapped by the City including Dallas DID, Uptown, Deep Ellum, Klyde Warren/DAD, Knox Street, Oak Lawn-Hi Line, Prestonwood, Lake Highlands, North Lake Highlands, Midtown, University Crossing, South Side, Far East Dallas and RedBird
  104. Texas homeowners insurance market overview · Texas Department of Insurance · retrieved
    Supports: A statewide average homeowners premium of $3,489 a year for 2025, from the Texas Statistical Plan for Residential Risks, Hail as the largest cause of paid homeowners losses, $4.93 billion in 2024 against $2.21 billion for wind
  105. Insurance and your roof: what to know when buying a policy or filing a claim · Texas Department of Insurance · retrieved
    Supports: Replacement cost coverage pays for a new roof at current prices, and actual cash value coverage pays replacement cost minus depreciation, As roofs age, some companies will switch to actual cash value, A deductible for wind and hail damage can differ from the deductible for other damage
  106. Texas homeowners insurance · NerdWallet · retrieved
    Supports: An average Dallas premium of $6,915 a year and a Texas average of $5,910, for $500,000 of dwelling cover, updated 20 February 2026
  107. How much is homeowners insurance in Dallas, TX? · Insure.com · retrieved
    Supports: An average Dallas premium of $4,212 a year for $300,000 of dwelling cover, $100,000 of liability and a $1,000 deductible, updated 27 May 2026
  108. Renters insurance in Texas · NerdWallet · retrieved
    Supports: An average Dallas renters premium of $167 a year for $30,000 of personal property, updated 23 September 2026
  109. Monthly homeowners' or condominium association fee, table B25143, 2024 American Community Survey 1-year estimates, Dallas city · United States Census Bureau · retrieved
    Supports: A median monthly association fee of $280 among Dallas owner-occupied units that pay one, 50,335 of 226,859 owner-occupied units, or 22.2%, paying such a fee, from table B25142
  110. City of Dallas utility fees effective 1 October 2025 · City of Dallas · retrieved
    Supports: A residential sanitation fee of $40.09 a month, $43.40 with tax, A residential stormwater fee of $5.39 to $21.01 a month by impervious area, An environmental cleanup fee of $3.00 a month on every City of Dallas utility account
  111. Dallas Homebuyer Assistance Program (DHAP) · City of Dallas Housing and Homelessness Solutions · retrieved
    Supports: Assistance of up to $60,000 in High Opportunity Areas and $50,000 elsewhere in Dallas, for households at or below 80% of area median income, A maximum sales price of $342,000 for existing and newly built homes, for contracts from 1 September 2024, A second lien as an interest-free forgivable deferred loan with no monthly payments, prorated annually, with partial repayment due on a sale, lease or transfer, Administered by Business and Community Lenders of Texas from 1 May 2026
  112. Annual estimates of the resident population for incorporated places, 2020 to 2025 · United States Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program · retrieved
    Supports: A population of 1,329,491 for Dallas on 1 July 2025, 1,245,355 of them in Dallas County, 54,266 in Collin, 29,865 in Denton, five in Rockwall and none in Kaufman, 3,638 in Cockrell Hill, 8,764 in Highland Park and 25,323 in University Park
  113. 2025 Gazetteer files: places, Texas · United States Census Bureau · retrieved
    Supports: A land area of 339.685 square miles and a water area of 43.966 square miles for Dallas city