City comparison · 2,288 km apart · two countries, two currencies

Ottawa vs Dallas: which should you move to?

Ottawa 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.

Parliament Hill from the Ottawa River
Ontario · Canada

Ottawa

Photograph: Parliament Hill from the Ottawa River · Matti Blume · 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

The two housing bills are in different currencies, and held against local pay they are far apart even though the homes are not. Ottawa's composite benchmark is 6.2 times local median household income and the Dallas single-family median about 6.3, but mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $3,350 CAD a month in Ottawa, roughly 39% of the city's 2020 median, and about $3,529 USD in Dallas, roughly 57% of its 2024 median. The gap is a 7.03% mortgage rate against 4.34% and a property tax of $7,448 a year on the Dallas median house against $5,262 CAD, which is how Texas collects what it does not take in income tax. The labor market is Dallas's, with metro unemployment at 4.2% in July 2026 against 6.8% in Ottawa-Gatineau, and so is the airport. Homicide favors Ottawa, 21 in 2025 at 1.59 per 100,000 against 140 at about 10.5. The pair also holds both ends of this site's climate range: Ottawa's -10.0 C January is the coldest of the fourteen cities compared and Dallas's 30.7 C July the warmest. Choose Ottawa for coverage that comes with residency, transit and French schooling. Choose Dallas for the job market, the flights and an 8.8 C January.

Ottawa prices are in CAD and Dallas prices are in USD. The tables leave them in their own currency and compare ratios and rates instead; a conversion would be stale by the time you read it.

Population
MeasureOttawaDallasAdvantage
City population1,188,114 (2025)1,329,491 (2025)Not directly comparable
Metro population1,700,014 (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.
8.9% (2016-2021)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
MeasureOttawaDallasAdvantage
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.
$634,000 (July 2026)$469,900 (August 2026)Not directly comparable
Detached house benchmark
Dallas publishes a single house index rather than a composite, so the two rows repeat.
$725,000$469,900Not directly comparable
Apartment or condominium benchmark$385,500$310,000Not directly comparable
Two-bedroom rent$1,916/mo (average, October 2025)$1,853/mo (average, August 2026)Not directly comparable
One-bedroom rent$1,593/mo$1,416/moNot directly comparable
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.
22.5% of a year's income29.9% of a year's incomeOttawa
Mortgage payment on the benchmark, 20% down
25 years in Ottawa against 30 in Dallas, each compounding the way its own country's lenders do. The rates are not a spread you can shop: they are what each market charges.
$2,762/mo at 4.34%$2,509/mo at 7.03%Not directly comparable
Price to household income
Benchmark price divided by the median household income below. A ratio is comparable across currencies; the dollars are not.
6.2×6.3×Ottawa
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.
$5,262/yr (0.83%, 2026)$7,448/yr (1.585%, 2025)Ottawa
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.
$9,155 (buyer pays)NoneDallas
Rent control
A cap protects a sitting tenant and does nothing for the next lease, so neither column is simply better.
2.1% guideline (2026)Forbidden by state lawNot directly comparable

Ottawa: About 0.83% of market value. Ottawa levies roughly 1.26%, but against a Current Value Assessment frozen at 1 January 2016 values, because Ontario has deferred every reassessment since. The average urban home is assessed at $415,000 and pays about $5,246 in 2026, which on the $634,000 composite benchmark is 0.83%. Ottawa's municipal taxes on a representative detached house were the lowest of Ontario's ten largest cities in 2025. 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
MeasureOttawaDallasAdvantage
Crime Severity Index
Statistics Canada's weighted index for the metropolitan area, where 100 is Canada in 2006. American cities have no equivalent series.
50.6 (2025)Not publishedNot directly comparable
Violent crime per 100,000
Canada counts every violent Criminal Code incident; the FBI counts four offences. The Canadian figure is always the larger one for that reason alone.
814 (2025)577 (2025)Not directly comparable
Property crime per 100,0002,835 (2025)3,081 (2025)Not directly comparable
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.
21 (2025)140 (2025)Not directly comparable
Ottawa

The Ontario-part CSI rose from 46.85 in 2021 to 54.20 in 2023, held at 54.12 in 2024 and fell 6% to 50.61 in 2025 (table 35-10-0026-01). The violent crime rate has kept climbing, from 744 per 100k in 2021 to 814 in 2025, while property crime peaked in 2024 at 2,957 per 100k and eased to 2,835 in 2025.

What the rates cover: Total violent Criminal Code violations, rate per 100,000, Ottawa-Gatineau CMA Ontario part, table 35-10-0177-01 (10,745 incidents).

Homicides: Ottawa-Gatineau CMA Ontario part, table 35-10-0177-01; rate 1.59 per 100,000. 2024 was 27 (2.10 per 100k), the highest of the last five years.

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
MeasureOttawaDallasAdvantage
January mean-10.0 °C8.8 °CNot directly comparable
July mean21.2 °C30.7 °CNot directly comparable
Precipitation a year930 mm973 mmNot directly comparable
Snowfall a year232 cm4 cmNot directly comparable
Sunshine a year2,084 hours2,850 hoursDallas
Ottawa

Environment and Climate Change Canada 1991-2020 normals at Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier Int'l A (climate ID 6106000). Annual mean 6.5 C, rainfall 757.2 mm. Sunshine hours are from the 1981-2010 normals at Ottawa CDA (climate ID 6105976) because the 1991-2020 airport table does not publish sunshine totals.

Hazards: Cold winters with regular snowstorms and freezing rain, spring flooding along the Ottawa River (2017 and 2019), summer heat and humidity, occasional severe thunderstorms and tornadoes (September 2018, the May 2022 derecho), and wildfire smoke episodes such as June 2023.

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
MeasureOttawaDallasAdvantage
Median household income$102,000 CAD (2020)$74,323 USD (2024)Not directly comparable
Unemployment rate
Statistics Canada and the Bureau of Labor Statistics define unemployment slightly differently; the Canadian measure runs about a point higher on the same labour market.
6.8% (July 2026)4.2% (July 2026)Not directly comparable
Sales tax13%8.25%Dallas
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.
53.53%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.
$21,930 CAD$13,449 USDNot directly comparable
Ottawa

The federal government is the anchor employer: 130,628 of 279,707 federal public servants were based in the National Capital Region at March 31, 2025, and Budget 2025 announced about 28,000 more public service job cuts by 2029. Regional unemployment ran from 6.4% in mid 2025 to 7.3% in late 2025 before easing to 6.8% in July 2026.

Main sectors: Federal public administration, Technology (Kanata North, Shopify, telecom and defence), Health care and hospitals, Post-secondary education, Tourism and national institutions.

Property tax is set by the City of Ottawa; not verified here.

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
MeasureOttawaDallasAdvantage
SystemOC Transpo (buses, O-Train Lines 1, 2 and 4, Para Transpo); STO serves GatineauDART 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 transit11.2% (2021)2.0% (2024)Ottawa
Walk or cycle to work8.5% (2021)2.5% (2024)Ottawa
AirportOttawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport, YOW, 4.9 million passengers in 2025, up 6% on 2024 (Ottawa International Airport Authority, 2025 results)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
Ottawa

70.6 million O-Train and bus trips in 2025, up 3.9% on 2024 (OC Transpo report to Transit Committee, February 12, 2026). Ridership fell in early 2026: 11.5 million trips in January-February versus 12.4 million a year earlier.

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

Ottawa

Health care

Care is publicly funded through OHIP after a residency waiting period for newcomers, with prescription drugs, dental and vision outside the public plan for most working-age adults. The main hospitals are The Ottawa Hospital (Civic and General campuses), CHEO for children, the Queensway Carleton and Montfort; a replacement Civic campus was promised for 2028 but construction on the hospital itself had not begun as of 2026, and finding a family doctor is the hardest part of access, with the Ontario College of Family Physicians projecting 4.4 million Ontarians without one by 2026.

Education

The University of Ottawa (bilingual) and Carleton University are the large universities, with Algonquin College and La Cite for applied programs. Publicly funded schools run through four boards: the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, the Ottawa Catholic School Board, and French-language public and Catholic boards, so French immersion and full French schooling are both widely available.

Living there

Ottawa is a government town that behaves like a mid-sized city: quiet downtown evenings, a large share of households with two stable incomes, and a weekend life built around the Rideau Canal, the Gatineau Park hills across the river and the river pathways. Winters are long and cold, with roughly 232 cm of snow in a normal year, and summers are warm and humid. The O-Train light rail has had reliability problems since it opened in 2019, and the bus network has been cut back, so most households still drive.

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

Ottawa's figures are in Canadian dollars and Dallas's in US dollars, and against local pay the two homes cost almost the same. Ottawa's composite benchmark, a blend of houses, townhouses and apartments, was $634,000 CAD in July 2026. The Dallas price is the NTREIS median sale price of single-family houses, $469,900 USD in August 2026, 6.0% below a year earlier. That is 6.2 times Ottawa's 2020 median household income of $102,000 CAD and about 6.3 times Dallas's 2024 median of $74,323 USD. At 20% down, Ottawa's mortgage at 4.34% is $2,762 CAD a month over 25 years, and Dallas's $375,920 loan at Freddie Mac's 7.03% of 24 September 2026 about $2,509 USD over 30. Property tax is 0.83% of market value in Ottawa, $5,262 CAD a year, against $7,448 USD in Dallas, an effective 1.58% with a homestead and $10,463 without. With insurance at $145 CAD and $400 USD a month, the owners carry about $3,350 CAD and $3,529 USD, roughly 39% and 57% of local median income. A two-bedroom averaged $1,916 CAD in October 2025 and $1,853 USD in August 2026. Ontario caps increases at 2.1% for 2026 in units first occupied before 15 November 2018; Texas forbids rent control.

Homicide is the one count that crosses the border intact, and it favors Ottawa by a wide margin, though Ottawa's covers the Ontario part of its metro and Dallas's the city of 1,329,491. The Ontario part of Ottawa-Gatineau recorded 21 homicides in 2025, 1.59 per 100,000, against 27 in 2024; Dallas recorded 140 in the FBI's file, about 10.5 per 100,000, and 141 on the police count, against 184 in 2024. The other rates are different instruments. Statistics Canada put the Crime Severity Index for the Ontario part at 50.61 in 2025, below the national 75.0; American cities have no equivalent. Ottawa's violent rate of 813.79 per 100,000 counts every violent Criminal Code violation, common assault and uttering threats included. Dallas's 577 is 7,674 FBI-definition offenses of murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, divided by the Census estimate, because the department's own measure leaves rape out. Property crime, 2,834.59 per 100,000 against 3,081, is defined differently too. The directions differ: Ottawa's violent rate has increased every year since 2021, from 744 per 100,000, while Dallas's violent offenses dropped 12% in 2025 and 31% in four years. The Dallas counts, read on 27 September 2026, can still be revised.

This pair holds both ends of the site's range. Ottawa's January mean of -10.0 C at the airport is the coldest of the fourteen cities compared, and Dallas's July mean of 30.7 C at Love Field the warmest. The other halves are 8.8 C for the Dallas January and 21.2 C for the Ottawa July. Precipitation is nearly level, 929.8 mm against 973 mm, but Ottawa takes 231.9 cm of it as snow and Dallas 4.3 cm. Ottawa's hazards are freezing rain, spring flooding along the Ottawa River in 2017 and 2019, the September 2018 tornadoes, the May 2022 derecho and wildfire smoke. Dallas's are heat, 22.4 days a year at or above 100F (37.8 C) in the normals and 54 in 2026 by 22 September; hail, with stones up to 5.25 in (13.3 cm) in April 2016; tornadoes, among them the October 2019 EF3; and the rare hard freeze, as in February 2021, when Love Field fell to 2F (-16.7 C) and ERCOT cut power across the state grid. An owner's utility premium over a renter is budgeted at $155 CAD a month in Ottawa, mostly heat from October to April, and $150 USD in Dallas, mostly cooling.

The labor markets differ in condition and in size. The Dallas-Fort Worth metro's unemployment rate was 4.2% in July 2026, seasonally adjusted, on 4,353,400 nonfarm jobs, 1.3% more than a year earlier, and the region counts 21 Fortune 500 headquarters. Ottawa-Gatineau's rate was 6.8% the same month, above Canada's 6.4%. Its anchor employer is the federal public service, with 130,628 of 279,707 federal public servants based in the National Capital Region at 31 March 2025, and Budget 2025 announced about 28,000 more positions to go by 2029. Average weekly wages around Dallas were $1,785 in the first quarter of 2026 against $1,654 nationally. Median household income was $102,000 CAD in Ottawa in 2020 and $74,323 USD in Dallas in 2024. Ontario levies a provincial income tax, so $100,000 pays about $21,930 CAD, including the $750 Ontario Health Premium and before CPP and EI, with a top combined rate of 53.53% and 13% HST. Texas levies none, so the same salary pays $13,449 USD in federal tax for 2025; the top rate is the federal 37% and sales tax is 8.25%. Property tax carries the load instead, $7,448 a year on the Dallas median house against $5,262 CAD on Ottawa's benchmark.

Ottawa's transit is troubled and still used far more than Dallas's, though Dallas has more rail. In the 2021 census 11.2% of Ottawa commuters took transit and 8.5% walked or cycled, counted in May 2021 with remote work at its height, so the share now is unknown rather than low. In Dallas in 2024, 2.0% took transit, 2.5% walked or cycled and 68.6% drove alone. OC Transpo carried 70.6 million trips in 2025 on buses and O-Train Lines 1, 2 and 4, though the O-Train has had reliability problems since it opened in 2019 and January and February 2026 slipped to 11.5 million trips from 12.4 million a year earlier. 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; it carried 52,823,800 trips in 2025, 21,611,600 of them on light rail. Its member suburbs have pushed back on the 1% sales tax that pays for it, and Highland Park voted to leave. Flying is Dallas's by a wide margin: DFW handled 85,660,127 passengers in 2025 and Love Field 16,899,203, against 4.9 million at Ottawa.

Health care is where the border shows most. In Ottawa, OHIP pays for physician and hospital care with nothing due at the point of use after a residency wait for newcomers, though prescriptions, dental and vision mostly fall outside it. The bottleneck is a family doctor: the Ontario College of Family Physicians projected 4.4 million Ontarians without one by 2026, and the replacement Civic campus, promised for 2028, had not begun construction. In Dallas care is bought through an employer or marketplace plan, Medicare or Medicaid, and Texas is one of ten states that have not expanded Medicaid. It had the highest uninsured rate of any state in 2024, 16.7%, and the City of Dallas's was 22.7%. Parkland Memorial Hospital is UT Southwestern's primary teaching hospital and runs a Level I trauma center, as does Baylor University Medical Center. This site verified no wait time for either city. Ottawa has four publicly funded school boards, English and French, public and Catholic, so French immersion and full French schooling are ordinary choices. Dallas ISD, the second-largest district in Texas, opened 2026-27 with about 132,000 students against about 134,300 a year earlier and was rated B by the state for 2025.

What people underestimate is that a home at about the same multiple of local pay, 6.2 and 6.3 times, costs 39% of income to hold in Ottawa and 57% in Dallas, and that both causes of the gap carry a date. The rate is one. Ottawa's 4.34% is fixed for a five-year term and then renews at whatever the rate is then, while the Dallas 7.03% holds for thirty years; it sits about a third of a point above the August rate this site's other American cities were written at, and at 6.67% the Dallas carry would be about $3,439. The tax is the other. Ottawa levies about 1.26% against assessments frozen at 1 January 2016, which is why the bill works out to 0.83% of what a buyer pays today, and none of this site's sources dates the next reassessment. The Dallas $7,448 is the 2025 tax year and assumes a filed homestead, after which the appraised value can rise no more than 10% a year, though a buyer starts at full value, and it holds only inside the City and Dallas ISD. Getting in differs too: an Ottawa buyer owes $9,155 CAD in Ontario land transfer tax on the benchmark, and a Texas buyer owes none.

Ottawa

Better here

  • There were 21 homicides in 2025 across the Ontario part of the metro, 1.59 per 100,000, against 140 in Dallas at about 10.5.
  • Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $3,350 CAD a month on the July 2026 benchmark, roughly 39% of the city's 2020 median household income, against about 57% in Dallas.
  • OHIP covers physician and hospital care whoever employs you, where 22.7% of Dallas residents had no health insurance in 2024.
  • Transit carried 11.2% of commuters in the 2021 census and 8.5% walked or cycled, against 2.0% and 2.5% in Dallas in 2024, and OC Transpo ran 70.6 million trips in 2025 against DART's 52,823,800.
  • Property tax works out to 0.83% of market value for 2026, $5,262 CAD a year on the benchmark, against an effective 1.58% on the Dallas median house for the 2025 tax year.
  • July averages 21.2 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).

Worse here

  • Regional unemployment was 6.8% in July 2026 against 4.2% in Dallas-Fort Worth, and Budget 2025 announced about 28,000 more federal public service cuts by 2029.
  • January averages -10.0 C on a 231.9 cm snow normal, the coldest January mean of the fourteen cities this site compares, against 8.8 C and 4.3 cm in Dallas.
  • Income tax on $100,000 is about $21,930 CAD for 2025 against $13,449 USD of federal tax in Dallas, sales tax is 13% HST against 8.25%, and the top combined rate is 53.53% against 37%.
  • A buyer owes $9,155 in Ontario land transfer tax on the July 2026 benchmark, where Texas has no transfer tax.
  • 4.4 million Ontarians were projected to be without a family doctor by 2026, and the replacement Civic campus promised for 2028 had not begun construction.
  • Ottawa's airport handled 4.9 million passengers in 2025, against 85,660,127 at DFW, and many trips from Ottawa connect through Toronto or Montreal.

Choose Ottawa if

  • you want health coverage that comes with residency and survives a layoff
  • you would take a -10.0 C January over a 30.7 C July with about 22 days a year at 100F or more
  • you are raising children and want French schooling to be an ordinary option
  • you want a home that costs about 39% of local median income to hold rather than about 57%

The Ottawa guide · Neighbourhoods · Ottawa rent vs buy · Ottawa mortgage calculator

Dallas

Better here

  • Metro unemployment was 4.2% in July 2026 against 6.8% in Ottawa-Gatineau, on 4,353,400 nonfarm jobs growing 1.3% on the year.
  • Texas levies no income tax, so $100,000 pays $13,449 USD in federal tax for 2025 and $13,170 for 2026, against about $21,930 CAD in Ottawa.
  • January averages 8.8 C with 4.3 cm of snow a year on the 1991-2020 normals, against -10.0 C and 231.9 cm in Ottawa.
  • A buyer pays no transfer tax, where an Ottawa buyer owes $9,155 CAD on the July 2026 benchmark, and the 7.03% rate of 24 September 2026 is fixed for thirty years rather than renewed after five.
  • DFW handled 85,660,127 passengers in 2025 and Love Field another 16,899,203, against 4.9 million at Ottawa.
  • Violent offenses on the FBI's definitions dropped 12% in 2025 to 7,674, about 577 per 100,000, and 31% over four years, while Ottawa's police-reported violent rate has increased every year since 2021.

Worse here

  • There were 140 homicides in 2025, about 10.5 per 100,000, against 21 and 1.59 in the Ontario part of the Ottawa metro.
  • Mortgage, property tax and insurance come to about $3,529 USD a month on the August 2026 median, roughly 57% of the city's 2024 median household income against 39% in Ottawa, on a home at about the same multiple of income.
  • 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 0.83% of market value in Ottawa.
  • 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 $145 CAD in Ottawa, 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 at 4.2% unemployment in corporate headquarters, finance, logistics or aerospace rather than one waiting on federal public service cuts
  • you want an 8.8 C January instead of -10.0 C and can plan a summer around days at 100F
  • you fly often enough that an airport handling 85,660,127 passengers in 2025 changes how you travel
  • you have employer health insurance you trust and would rather pay property tax on a house than provincial income tax on a salary

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

08: Questions people ask

Ottawa or Dallas, in short

Is Ottawa or Dallas cheaper to live in?

Ottawa to own, once each bill is held against its own city's pay, because the currencies do not convert here. The homes cost about the same multiple of income: Ottawa's $634,000 CAD composite benchmark is 6.2 times the city's 2020 median household income of $102,000 CAD, and the $469,900 USD Dallas single-family median about 6.3 times its 2024 median of $74,323 USD. An Ottawa owner pays about $3,350 CAD a month on mortgage, property tax and insurance, roughly 39% of that income, and a Dallas owner about $3,529 USD, roughly 57%, because the mortgage rate is 7.03% against 4.34% and the property tax $7,448 a year against $5,262 CAD. Renting is closer: a two-bedroom averaged $1,916 CAD in October 2025 and $1,853 USD in August 2026, about 23% and 30% of each city's median household income. Dallas takes less income tax, $13,449 USD on $100,000 for 2025 against about $21,930 CAD, and less sales tax, 8.25% against 13%, and an Ottawa buyer funds $9,155 CAD of land transfer tax at closing.

Is Ottawa or Dallas safer?

Ottawa on homicide, the one count that crosses the border, though it is a count for the Ontario part of the metro against one for the City of Dallas. Ottawa's recorded 21 homicides in 2025, 1.59 per 100,000, against 27 in 2024; Dallas recorded 140 in the FBI's file, about 10.5 per 100,000, and 141 on its police department's own count, against 184 in 2024. The other rates are different instruments. Ottawa's violent rate of 813.79 per 100,000 counts every violent Criminal Code violation, including common assault, while Dallas's 577 is murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault from the FBI's counts, divided by the Census estimate and still open to revision. Property crime, 2,834.59 per 100,000 against 3,081, is defined differently as well. Statistics Canada put Ottawa's Crime Severity Index at 50.61 in 2025 against a national 75.0; American cities have no equivalent. Ottawa's violent rate has increased every year since 2021; Dallas's violent offenses dropped 12% in 2025.

Which has the better climate, Ottawa or Dallas?

Dallas in winter and Ottawa in summer, and between them they hold both ends of this site's range. January averages 8.8 C in Dallas with 4.3 cm of snow a year, against -10.0 C and 231.9 cm in Ottawa, the coldest January mean of the fourteen cities compared, and an Ottawa owner heats from October to April. July averages 21.2 C in Ottawa against 30.7 C at Love Field, the warmest July mean of the fourteen, where the normals count 22.4 days a year at or above 100F (37.8 C) and 2026 had 54 by 22 September. Precipitation is nearly level, 929.8 mm against 973 mm. Ottawa's hazards are freezing rain, Ottawa River flooding as in 2017 and 2019, the May 2022 derecho and wildfire smoke; Dallas's are hail, tornadoes, flash floods on its creeks and the rare hard freeze, like February 2021, when ERCOT cut power across the state grid.

What happens to my health care if I move from Ottawa to Dallas?

Coverage stops coming with residency and starts coming with a job or a purchase. In Ottawa, OHIP pays for physician and hospital care with nothing due at the point of use after a residency wait for newcomers, and an employer plan matters for prescriptions, dental and vision; the problem is access, with 4.4 million Ontarians projected to be without a family doctor by 2026. In Dallas you need an employer or marketplace plan, Medicare or Medicaid, with the premium, deductible and copay that come with it. Texas is one of the ten states that have not expanded Medicaid and had the highest uninsured rate of any state in 2024, 16.7%; the City of Dallas's was 22.7%. Parkland Memorial Hospital, the county's public hospital and UT Southwestern's primary teaching hospital, runs a Level I trauma center, as does Baylor University Medical Center. This site verified no wait time figure for either city.

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. Census Profile, 2021 Census of Population: Ottawa, City (CSD) and Ottawa-Gatineau (Ontario part) · Statistics Canada · retrieved
    Supports: population.city (2021 count), Five-year growth, Median household income, Transit commute share, Walk and cycle commute share
  2. Census Profile, 2021 Census of Population: Ottawa-Gatineau (CMA) · Statistics Canada · retrieved
    Supports: population.metro (2021 count), population.growthPct5y (CMA)
  3. Population estimates, July 1, by census subdivision, 2021 boundaries (table 17-10-0155-01) · Statistics Canada · retrieved
    Supports: City population
  4. Population estimates, July 1, by census metropolitan area and census agglomeration, 2021 boundaries (table 17-10-0148-01) · Statistics Canada · retrieved
    Supports: Metro population
  5. Crime severity index and weighted clearance rates, Canada, provinces, territories and Census Metropolitan Areas (table 35-10-0026-01) · Statistics Canada · retrieved
    Supports: Crime Severity Index, Crime trend
  6. Police-reported Crime Severity Index and crime rate, by census metropolitan area, 2025 · Statistics Canada, The Daily · retrieved
    Supports: Crime Severity Index, crime.propertyRatePer100k (all-crime rate context)
  7. Incident-based crime statistics, by detailed violations, Canada, provinces, territories, CMAs (table 35-10-0177-01) · Statistics Canada · retrieved
    Supports: Violent crime rate, Property crime rate, Homicides, Crime trend
  8. Ottawa crime rate increases in 2025, remains above Ontario average · Yahoo News Canada (Ottawa Police Service KPI report to the Police Services Board, January 26, 2026) · retrieved
    Supports: crime.index (OPS city CSI 55.8)
  9. Canadian Climate Normals 1991-2020, Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier Int'l A · Environment and Climate Change Canada · retrieved
    Supports: January mean, July mean, Annual precipitation, Annual snowfall
  10. Canadian Climate Normals 1981-2010, Ottawa CDA · Environment and Climate Change Canada · retrieved
    Supports: Sunshine hours
  11. Labour force characteristics by census metropolitan area, three-month moving average, seasonally adjusted (table 14-10-0459-01) · Statistics Canada · retrieved
    Supports: Unemployment rate, Labour market
  12. Labour Force Survey, July 2026 · Statistics Canada, The Daily · retrieved
    Supports: economy.unemploymentPct (Canada and Ontario comparison)
  13. Federal government to cut another 28,000 public service jobs by 2029 · CTV News Ottawa · retrieved
    Supports: Labour market
  14. Federal Government Jobs in Ottawa: 2026 Hiring Guide (citing Public Service Commission counts at March 31, 2025) · Via Ottawa · retrieved
    Supports: economy.note (NCR public servant count)
  15. 2025 and 2026 Combined Federal and Ontario Tax Rates Including Surtaxes · TaxTips.ca · retrieved
    Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
  16. Ontario Health Premium · TaxTips.ca · retrieved
    Supports: Income tax on $100,000
  17. 2025 Non-Refundable Personal Tax Credits, Base Amounts · TaxTips.ca · retrieved
    Supports: Income tax on $100,000
  18. Recap: February 12, 2026 Transit Committee · OC Transpo · retrieved
    Supports: Transit ridership
  19. OC Transpo sees drop in ridership to start 2026 · CTV News Ottawa · retrieved
    Supports: transit.ridershipNote (early 2026)
  20. A transformational year: Ottawa Airport Authority reports 2025 results · Ottawa International Airport Authority · retrieved
    Supports: Airport passengers
  21. More Than Four Million Ontarians Will Be Without a Family Doctor by 2026 · Ontario College of Family Physicians · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  22. New Ottawa Civic hospital opening likely delayed by years, says project consultant · CBC News · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  23. 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
  24. 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
  25. 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
  26. Violent Crime Reduction Plan Update, Public Safety Committee, June 3, 2025 · Dallas Police Department (City of Dallas) · retrieved
    Supports: Violent crime rate, Crime trend
  27. Police Incidents (Dallas Police Public Data, RMS incidents from June 1, 2014) · City of Dallas OpenData · retrieved
    Supports: Violent crime rate
  28. Dallas sees lowest violent crime numbers since 2015 as chief credits new crime strategies · CBS Texas · retrieved
    Supports: Homicides, Crime trend
  29. 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
  30. 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
  31. 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
  32. 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
  33. Dallas/Fort Worth: Annual and Consecutive 100 Degree Days (last updated 22 September 2026) · National Weather Service, Fort Worth/Dallas · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  34. Average Annual Sunshine in US Cities · Current Results (NCDC Comparative Climatic Data, 1961-1990) · retrieved
    Supports: Sunshine hours, Climate normals
  35. 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
  36. April 11th 2016 Hail Storm · National Weather Service, Fort Worth/Dallas · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  37. Cotality 2026 Report: Hail risk now rivals major hurricanes (2026 Severe Convective Storm Risk Report) · Cotality · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  38. North Texas Tornadoes, October 20, 2019 · National Weather Service, Fort Worth/Dallas · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  39. 2019 North Dallas tornado (path length, structures destroyed, damage, casualties) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  40. December 26, 2015 Tornado Outbreak · National Weather Service, Fort Worth/Dallas · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  41. Dallas Levee System · City of Dallas, Trinity River Corridor Project · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  42. Trinity River at Dallas (DALT2), historic crests · NOAA National Water Prediction Service · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  43. 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
  44. Wettest 24 hours in nearly a century for Dallas-Fort Worth · Yale Climate Connections · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  45. February 2021 Winter Storm-Related Deaths, Texas (mortality surveillance report) · Texas Department of State Health Services · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  46. The Timeline and Events of the February 2021 Texas Electric Grid Blackouts · The University of Texas at Austin Energy Institute · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  47. How the Texas power grid is holding up during the winter storm · CBS Texas · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  48. Energy Secretary Issues Emergency Order to Secure Texas Grid Amid Winter Storm Fern · US Department of Energy · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  49. Dallas Area Reservoirs (daily storage, percent full) · Texas Water Development Board, Water Data for Texas · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  50. Frequently Asked Questions (watering schedule) and City of Dallas Water Conservation Ordinance · Dallas Water Utilities, Save Dallas Water · retrieved
    Supports: Climate hazards
  51. 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
  52. 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
  53. 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
  54. 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
  55. Dallas-Fort Worth Area Economic Summary · US Bureau of Labor Statistics · retrieved
    Supports: Unemployment rate, Main sectors, Labour market
  56. Dallas Regional Economic Development Guide 2026: Major Companies and Headquarters · Dallas Regional Chamber · retrieved
    Supports: Main sectors, Labour market
  57. City Sales and Use Tax (city rate table) · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved
    Supports: Sales tax
  58. Transit Sales and Use Tax (Dallas MTA, effective January 1, 1984) · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved
    Supports: Sales tax, Transit ridership
  59. Sales and Use Tax · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved
    Supports: Sales tax
  60. Texas Tax Rates & Rankings · Tax Foundation · retrieved
    Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000, Tax notes, Character
  61. 2025 Tax Brackets and Federal Income Tax Rates · Tax Foundation · retrieved
    Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
  62. 2026 Tax Brackets and Federal Income Tax Rates · Tax Foundation · retrieved
    Supports: Top marginal income tax, Income tax on $100,000
  63. Property Tax Exemptions · Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts · retrieved
    Supports: Tax notes
  64. Dallas approves $5.66 billion budget for 2026-27 fiscal year · Lake Highlands Advocate · retrieved
    Supports: Tax notes, Character
  65. City of Dallas Update on Proposition U, Police and Fire Funding Appropriation · City of Dallas · retrieved
    Supports: Tax notes, Character
  66. About DART (DART facts) · Dallas Area Rapid Transit · retrieved
    Supports: Transit system, Transit ridership, Character
  67. 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
  68. 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
  69. DART services in Richardson, Plano to remain unchanged as Highland Park withdraws · Community Impact · retrieved
    Supports: Transit ridership, Character
  70. DFW Total Passengers, December 2025 (calendar year 2025 vs 2024) · Dallas Fort Worth International Airport · retrieved
    Supports: Airport passengers
  71. World's Busiest Airports: Atlanta Holds, Asia Climbs (2025 passenger and movement rankings) · ACI World · retrieved
    Supports: Airport passengers
  72. Dallas Love Field (2025 passenger totals from the FAA, location, Southwest Airlines) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Airport passengers, Climate normals
  73. Status of State Medicaid Expansion Decisions · KFF · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  74. Parkland Memorial Hospital · UT Southwestern Medical Center · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  75. About the Trauma Center · Parkland Health · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  76. Baylor University Medical Center, part of Baylor Scott & White Health · Baylor Scott & White Health · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  77. 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
  78. 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
  79. New Dallas Pediatric Campus Puts Children First · Southwestern Medical District · retrieved
    Supports: Health care
  80. On Dallas ISD's first day of school, enrollment's down, but letter grade may be up · KERA News · retrieved
    Supports: Education, Character
  81. Southern Methodist University (fall 2025 enrollment, University Park) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Education
  82. University of Texas at Dallas (Richardson) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Education
  83. Dallas College (seven campuses in Dallas County) · Wikipedia · retrieved
    Supports: Education
  84. MLS® Home Price Index: Ottawa Real Estate Board, July 2026 · Canadian Real Estate Association / Ottawa Real Estate Board · retrieved
    Supports: Composite MLS® HPI benchmark of $634,000 in July 2026, down 0.5% year over year, Single-family benchmark of $725,000, up 0.7% year over year, Townhouse and row benchmark of $542,500, down 5.1% year over year, Apartment benchmark of $385,500, down 5.2% year over year, 1,325 sales and 4,678 active listings in July 2026
  85. Rental Market Survey: Ottawa, average rent by bedroom type, October 2025 · Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation · retrieved
    Supports: Ottawa average purpose-built rents of $1,332 studio, $1,593 one-bedroom, $1,916 two-bedroom and $2,090 three-bedroom-plus, An overall average of $1,743 across 89,170 purpose-built units, Year-over-year increases of 3.4% on one- and two-bedroom units and 3.9% overall, Average rent of $2,320 in buildings completed in 2000 or later against $1,529 in buildings from before 1960
  86. Rental Market Statistics Summary: Ottawa (CV), October 2025 · Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation · retrieved
    Supports: City of Ottawa purpose-built vacancy rate of 2.9% across 86,550 units, City of Ottawa average rent of $1,741 and median rent of $1,675
  87. 2026 Tax Policy and Other Revenue Matters · City of Ottawa, Revenue Services · retrieved
    Supports: Ontario's last province-wide reassessment was completed in 2016 and municipalities rely on 2016 assessment values for the 2026 tax year, The average urban Ottawa home is assessed at $415,000, A 2026 net municipal increase of $184 on that home: $166 from the 3.75% budget increase and $18 from the multi-residential ratio change, The 2026 budget was approved on 10 December 2025 with a 3.75% overall municipal tax increase, Ottawa's 2025 average municipal taxes on a representative two-storey detached house were $5,490, the lowest of Ontario's ten largest municipalities
  88. Education property tax rates · Government of Ontario · retrieved
    Supports: The residential education tax rate of 0.153% of assessed value, unchanged since 2020
  89. Premium information for homeowner and small rental loans · Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation · retrieved
    Supports: Mortgage default insurance premium rates by loan-to-value
  90. Regulations amending the Insurable Housing Loan Regulations and the Eligible Mortgage Loan Regulations (SOR/2025-55) · Canada Gazette, Part II · retrieved
    Supports: The $1.5 million insured price cap, 30-year amortization for first-time buyers and new builds
  91. Minimum qualifying rate for uninsured mortgages · Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions · retrieved
    Supports: The qualifying rate of the contract rate plus two points, or 5.25%
  92. Interest rates charged for new and existing lending by chartered banks · Bank of Canada · retrieved
    Supports: The default mortgage rate of 4.34%, uninsured five-year-plus fixed, funds advanced May 2026
  93. Calculating Land Transfer Tax · Ontario Ministry of Finance · retrieved
    Supports: Provincial transfer tax brackets, The conditional 2.5% band
  94. Municipal Land Transfer Tax rates and fees · City of Toronto · retrieved
    Supports: Toronto municipal transfer tax brackets, First-time buyer rebate
  95. Residential rent increases · Government of Ontario · retrieved
    Supports: 2026 rent increase guideline of 2.1%, The 2018 occupancy exemption
  96. Retail Sales Tax · Government of Ontario · retrieved
    Supports: 8% retail sales tax on insurance premiums
  97. 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
  98. 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
  99. 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
  100. 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
  101. 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
  102. 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
  103. 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
  104. 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
  105. 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
  106. 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
  107. 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
  108. 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
  109. 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
  110. 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
  111. Primary Mortgage Market Survey, 24 September 2026 · Freddie Mac · retrieved
    Supports: A 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaging 7.03%, up from 6.95% the week before and 6.30% a year earlier
  112. 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
  113. 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
  114. 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
  115. 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
  116. 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
  117. 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
  118. 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
  119. 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
  120. 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
  121. 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