6. Klyde Warren Park at 10 p.m. on a Friday welcomes all comers, whether they're wearing $6,000 suits or $6 sweatpants. And there's pingpong.
7. The Dallas Arboretum on a fine spring day when the tulips are blooming and dozens of smiling brides are in their gowns getting photographs -- that's a happy, hopeful place.
8. We come down like hell's fury on animal abusers, and the region has several no-kill shelters and rescue groups for dogs, cats, even rabbits.
9. White Rock Lake is Dallas' Central Park, a 2-square-mile lake that is unlike any other urban park because it has been so wonderfully cared for -- dredged, maintained and watched over -- while also being neglected just the right amount, with cool little niches to explore that have never been civilized. Half city park, half hillbilly outback, White Rock is the perfect mirror to a city's soul.
10. A new exciting thing is opening in Deep Ellum every three minutes.
11. Our two coolest rock stars (still a sausage fest of a field) are both women: St. Vincent's Annie Clark and Sarah Jaffe.
12. We continue to be a major stopover for coast-to-coast touring bands as well as a spillover city for Austin festivals, so we get all the best music with far less of the crowds.
13. Our malls have better art than some cities' museums.
14. Half Price Books
15. We possess an equal number of fancy places/people and divey places/laid-back people.
16. We have a honky-tonk gay bar. Where Lady Gaga goes for fun.
17. Halloween on Swiss Avenue is a crazy thronging cultural mash-up, the American holiday meets Día de los Muertos, with thousands of costumed treat-seekers door-to-door along a broad avenue of elaborately decorated early 20th century mansions. There are wandering buskers and push-cart vendors in the streets, all of it jolly and sweet-tempered, a reminder that you're in two cultures at once and it's working.
18. For a place with no mountains, the mountain bike trails are pretty awesome.
19. We have a lesbian Latina sheriff, a black exonerating district attorney and a healthy Democratic Party. If you squint, you could almost believe we're not in the same state as Ted Cruz.
20. You can afford to buy a house (maybe) (OK, probably not) (maybe your parents could help with the down payment?).
21. An insane and growing number of awesome patios, rooftop and otherwise.
22. The Double Wide. For last-stop YooHoo Yeehaws, really funny themed karaoke nights, and interesting bands I've never heard of but that almost always end up being great.
23. Fancy-ass hotels (and fancy-ass hotel bars).
24. If not for us, the Miami Heat would already have a threepeat.
25. Two airports.