dewster

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Has 0 culture of its own

Half the population are just illegals

The other half is just immigrants from all over the world (not a problem but destroys any sense of community)

Every one separates into their own racial enclaves Asian, Indian, Middle Eastern, White, and Spanish neighborhoods and don’t interact with each other.

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I mean this is probably what they said about New York 150 years ago and Chicago 120 years ago too. Full of immigrants that self-segregated and built their own neighborhoods. In some ways they felt like a zoo and it took a while to build a shared culture.

Dallas-Ft Worth is a hell of an economic miracle IMO. It's a sunbelt city that is struggling with the recent rise of opioid abuse, homelessness, and they have some radical left wing judges and DAs that are unwilling to enforce the law. That last bit is an issue they have to resolve if they want to reduce the pace of growth in the suburbs.

I maintain that Houston, Dallas, and Austin are some of the biggest economic powerhouses in the country today. Doesn't mean I want to live there. But I could see how people would overlook the shortcomings to experience better upward mobility and reasonable costs of living.

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The real churches hold themselves to the authority of the Bible and scripture.

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Those very much do still exist. But they are fewer and farther between in the junk drawer that has become of the wide variety of protestant churches out there.

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Episcopalians are not really in a "church" per se. It is a social club for upper middle-class whites.

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Catholic Lite. Perfectly friendly people but the ones I know are uncomfortable with acceptance of core Catholic beliefs and traditions.

My grandfather was Episcopalian and a free mason. He married a Catholic girl and the stereotypes held 100% true: Every one of his kids and grand kids became practicing Catholics. :lol:

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Landry is pissing of everyone within lsu, which includes the very conservative base too. He doesn’t know shite about running anything

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2 people in my precinct voted for one of the other republicans (not Landry). I was one of those voters.

Landry is stupid popular and I don't know why. I think he sucks, although he can redeem himself if he executes on this GATOR thing a bit better and somehow gets dirt moving on the new Baton Rouge bridge project.

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I think the new Xterra and Frontier will be on a shared new platform in 3-4 years. Probably going to have a hybrid powertrain like the Tacoma and 4Runner.

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Since 6th gen 4Runner pricing went crazy, there is definitely a gap that Nissan could exploit if they keep it simple and affordable.

Basically make it like a 4th or 5th gen 4Runner.

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Overpriced, by a lot.

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That's tradition. It's also tradition for the Grand Wagoneer to be outsold by Ford and General Motors too. :lol:

The original Grand Wagoneer from the 1980s-mid 1990s wasn't that popular either. It was a hodgepodge of cobbled together truck parts from Ford, Chrysler, GM etc and it was based on a body on frame chassis (unlike the wildly popular Cherokee and Grand Cherokee). The Old Grand Wagoneer ultimately became a big, expensive, heavy, slow, and weak selling model that had limited appeal just like the new Grand Wagoneer. If that was their goal, the nailed it. It, too, was outsold by the full sized Bronco, Blazer, and Suburbans in those days. Didn't last as long as any of them either since AMC had no idea how to handle rust protection and AMC didn't have the best quality control. The core design was also from the 1960s so it wasn't really cutting it after newer and better Broncos, Blazers, and Suburbans came out in the 1980s and 1990s.

The new Wagoneer maybe should have been a Ram model with a different name (RamCharger or something). It's a heavy body on frame vehicle that isn't particularly good off road. It can tow very well though. I also think the Ram styling language would just work better for a giant SUV.

The things that made Jeep truly innovative and a gem within the otherwise struggling AMC portfolio (and eventually Chrysler) were their unit body chassis combined with serious off road hardware. Nobody else was doing that at the time. They were Range Rover before Range Rover figured out how to actually do that.

IMO the Jeep lineup should only be the Wrangler, Wrangler Unlimited, Gladiator, Cherokee and Grand Cherokee. The Grand Cherokee should move slightly more upmarket with every new redesign (more closely aligning with the price/size of Land Rover's Defender and Range Rover products). The Cherokee should simply be a shorter 5 passenger version of the Grand Cherokee.

Stellantis should let Ram have the full sized SUV and let Jeep continue to be Jeep. All going to the same dealership anyways. I'd start working on that now and plan on sunsetting the Wagoneer/Grand Wagoneer since they are not very good at being Jeeps. And people have sort of indicated that they aren't great at pulling buyers from GMC Yukons, Lincoln Navigators, and Cadillac Escalades - which means the full sized Ram SUV needs to be aimed more at the lower end Tahoe or Expedition.

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Southwest = OT Poor

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Not necessarily. Southwest Airlines is a discount carrier in every way but price.

I would not relocate there personally. If I had to move there, I'd definitely move to one of the nicer suburbs west of the city or closer to Annapolis.

My wife's grew up near Baltimore in the Severna Park/Glen Bernie area. She and her family don't speak to highly of Baltimore. They seemed to prefer Annapolis for obvious reasons. That's where they did their shopping, etc. growing up. Her folks moved to south Louisiana when they retired. Maryland is a high tax area with a high costs of living, so it made sense for them to relocate.

For the record, they claim that their area is south of the Mason-Dixon line, but it looks and feels very Yankee to me. Solid seafood game, but the dirty little secret is that some of their most iconic restaurants sources a lot of their crab meat from the gulf coast.

Personally - I found Camden Yards to be great, and the inner harbor is very nice. But it's one of America's worst towns if you get outside of that bubble. It's a shame because it's got the bones to be a great place. It's just going to struggle with it's own demographics and with being so close to both Philadelphia and DC. It doesn't really offer anything that those two don't have more of.

There are some very good suburbs though, but some really ratty ones too. Overall I'm not a big fan of Maryland in general, but it's definitely in a solid location for weekend entertainment and amenities.

Was surprised at how rough the area around University of Maryland was in College Park (I know it's closer to DC). Annapolis, the eastern shore, etc are all very nice. A lot of the overlapping suburban areas between DC and Baltimore are past their prime, but some are still pretty nice.

I see nothing here that is worth trading in my current 4Runner.

I sort of like it.....but my big problem with this thing is that it's only incrementally better in some ways than the model it replaces but costs $20K more. They do have $55K 4Runners - and for that price I might be able to overlook the buzzy 4 cylinder engine.....but those models also look like a rental car with black plastic over fenders, very plasticky interior, and boring color combinations.

In many ways it seems like a compliance vehicle - ditching the bulletproof reliable V6 and 5 speed in exchange for a turbo 4 cylinder hybrid. Consumers didn't ask for that.

I hope that Nissan and GM are seeing the MSRP on these 4Runners and consider making a 4 door SUV based off their Frontier and Canyon/Colorado.

Traffic in Baton Rouge gonna get even worse.