I have lived in many places out west, thanks. Metro areas are kind of arbitrary things with surprisingly arbitrary definitions. But going by USGS, the Washing

I have lived in many places out west, thanks. Metro areas are kind of arbitrary things with surprisingly arbitrary definitions. But going by USGS, the Washington DC metro area alone is about 6.4 million people, surprisingly close to the Dallas metro area. If you're going to insist on including Fort Worth, then you probably should also allow the DC metro area to include Baltimore, whose city center is under 40 miles from the White House. The combined DC and Baltimore metro area is about 9 million people, larger than DFW I believe. I understand that everything is bigger in Texas. But everyone seems to want to restrict DC to the diamond, which is like restricting New York to Manhattan. DC is much larger than many people realize. Regardless, my point is: from the perspective of the impact on population size, Dallas and DC are roughly equivalent environments.