I don't think I would move back there for even triple my current salary. In so many ways, what a god awful place.
Other than the really crappy weather in the summer, and the absolute lack of any natural beauty, it's a good place to live. But I guess I just named two big negatives. The thing that spoils me is never being more than about 5-10 minutes away from a clothing store/mall. And having three grocery stores within a half mile of my house is also really convenient.
WF was the coldest place I've ever lived, and the hottest place I have ever lived. In March, avg wind speed was somewhere around 160 mph. It never rained - only 15 inches per year. You have to drive 2 hours to use your boat. The food (restaurants) sucked unless you like Mexican slop, property taxes are sky high and you are right, the landscape is ugly as hell. Besides that, it was 11 hours from home. Hated that place. On the plus side, I do miss some pretty awesome people from there, just not enough to ever entertain the idea of moving back. Once a year for Cajun Fest will do just fine.
Would you agree that DFW offers more than WF? But, yes, DFW is the coldest and hottest place I've lived, and the windiest--all four seasons. When it was 107 degrees at 5th grade camp last year, we had a 25 mph wind hitting us at the same time on our hike. One of the girls in my trail group said, "It feels like we're walking through fire."
Yes, DFW offers more. Like traffic. Lots of traffic. And concrete everywhere. I'm not a shopper, so malls do nothing for me. Did I mention the traffic? It takes 1/2 hour to go get a gallon of milk there. I had several properties that I maintained in the DFW area and I spent huge amounts of time in the truck. To me, north Texas is just not a very pleasant place.
After spending a week in Chicago recently, DFW traffic is nothing. To get anywhere in Chicago, it takes about 2 hours any time of day any day of the week. I spend all of my time in Plano and rarely go into Dallas, itself. Even though Plano has 300,000 people, it's laid out very nicely and traffic flows smoothly pretty much all of the time.
My nearest grocery store is across the street from my neighborhood, and I'm only three houses in--so it doesn't take 30 minutes to get milk. I also can get to work in around 12 minutes. So, fortunately, I don't have to deal with traffic. Unless I'm in Baton Rouge.
