Which Major City Lacks Cultural Depth?

What’s the biggest city with the least amount of “culture”?

That was the question recently posed to the r/geography subreddit, and the responses were as mixed as you’d expect. Leading the pack: Dallas, which topped a divisive list of cities users deemed culturally lacking.

“Dallas is massive, yet I can’t name one notable ‘thing’ from there besides sports teams and the site of JFK’s death,” one user wrote. Another added, “It strikes me as a very generic city. It has everything you want in a city — like you built it in a video game or ordered it from a catalog.”

Houston caught some strays, too. So did Charlotte and Jackson.

But as D Magazine’s Bethany Erickson notes, “culture” is a slippery term. For our purposes, let’s go with this definition: the characteristic features of everyday life shared by people in a particular place or time.

Another frequent mention? Dubai. Unsurprising, given that the “Dubai is soulless” narrative has been floating around for years. That argument typically centers on the idea that Dubai lacks a unified cultural identity — not because there’s no culture, but because there are so many. It’s a melting pot without a single, cohesive thread. But does that mean the city is soulless? I’m not so sure.

The Journey by InsideHook

Join over 100K travelers seeking trip ideas, the latest travel news, and all the inspiration you need for your next vacation.

One Redditor offered a more nuanced take: “Dubai is its own culture, but you never see it as a tourist. Dubai culture is living in your ethnicity- or class-based solitude, and then experiencing the interactions where those solitudes intersect.” They added, “The reason Dubai doesn’t have much outward influence is because the people who live there aren’t there to contribute to society, but to extract from it. The city doesn’t fit the standard model of ‘culture’ as most people understand it.”

In other words, it’s not that there’s no culture. it just doesn’t follow the familiar script.

Frankly, I think that’s probably the case in a lot of instances. I, for one, have been to plenty of places I didn’t connect with. But calling them “soulless”? That feels like a stretch. I’d argue that kind of claim should come from the people who live there — or at least have. Because while perception may be reality, a visitor’s take is just that: a take.

Eventually, a Dallas local jumped in. “No one lives in Dallas for any cultural aspect (unless food counts, because we have amazing food here!). The reason why we all moved here is for the family culture. DFW is a great place to raise a family. We live in a reasonably priced neighborhood, where all the neighbors know each other and hang out together. All of our kids play together pretty much every day. The schools are great, and everything we need is within 5-10 minutes. So we don’t tend to spend much time at all stuck in traffic for our daily needs.”

“We have two easy-to-get-to airports to take us anywhere we want to go for ‘culture’ — that’s the tradeoff,” they concluded.

Fair enough. Not every city is New Orleans! But calling a place “soulless” might say more about the visitor than the city. Take that with a grain of salt, though — I’ve never been to Dallas.