Dallas has a substantial high-tech background and has an interesting creative class, but there's not much intersection between the two. It also doesn't help much that the business attitudes in Dallas are very traditional and "corporate" (not sure how else to explain it). It's a shame, too, because there are 2-3 decent universities here, and various swarms of talent, but absolutely zero community.

Plano and Richardson probably fare better than most places with respect to interesting new companies and tech startups, but they've got a long way to go. I'd probably bet on Plano, if I had to choose. They've got some cultural outlets, an interesting historic downtown, a handful of technology companies, and it's a nice place to live with decent local governments, and it's nearby UT-Dallas, which is the best technology school in the Dallas Metro area (although not flagship like UT and TAMU).

Funny you should mention Lawrence and Austin in the same post. As a current resident of Lawrence, I can attest that this would be a great town to start a startup in, but there seems a definite lack of interest from the CS grads. Everyone seems bent on a big paycheck at Sprint or Cerner or Garmin.

I actually like Austin because it's like a bigger Lawrence, but never actually lived there.

All I really wish is for a place with a bunch of nerds and some fiber-to-the-home. Sadly, AT&T owns us here and something that fast will probably never happen.

Austin also has Univ. of Texas - ranked seventh in CS research. The startup I'm involved with is planning on opening up offices there when it's time to grow.

Also, the slogan of the town is "Keep Austin Weird". I like it.