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The Texas economy has seen its ups and downs. After a fairly long period of slowing down, the economy of Texas, including Dallas, has shown strong signs of revival in the last one year. Since 2001 the job growth in Texas has been below the national average. Job cuts worsened the situation, and the real wage cuts resulted in reduced demand for consumer goods. Texas seems to be putting all that behind, as growth is picking up on renewed activity in the construction, energy and manufacturing sectors. Unlike most other states, rise in oil prices is good news for Texas, fueling additional jobs and increased activity. Royalty earnings have also increased.
Dallas/Fort Worth is comprised of Dallas and Fort Worth. Like the rest of the state, it has a young and growing population. It is the largest metropolis in Texas and the fifth largest in the US, with a population of over 5 million residents as reported in the 2000 census. The 1990s saw steady and impressive growth in the economy and a respectable growth in the population of Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area. This is a period that was characterized by a large inflow of domestic and foreign immigrants as the metropolis experienced unprecedented employment growth
The strength of Dallas, and the state of Texas in general, is that it has a large workforce, low cost of living and a friendly business climate. Added to this is its resilient economy, making it the ideal location for cost conscious industries. Dallas responds to growth demands fast, and therefore is a preferred location in times of sudden upswings. The demand for new constructions is met faster in Dallas than anywhere else because of the relatively low level of regulations, lower construction costs, and large chunks of vacant land.
The comparatively low age and the diversity of its population has been another strong point in favor of Dallas. Nearly one quarter of the population of Dallas is Hispanic, which represents almost twice the national average. The median age is near 32 as against the national median age of 36.
While these advantages helped the state of Texas and Dallas in times of growth, it has also proved to be a double-edged weapon with the state being hit harder in times of recession. The heady years of the 1990s saw Dallas in the first place in terms of employment growth.
The period of glut that followed saw a decline in the job market. The construction industry experienced lower employment levels in this period with the residential construction being the only segment that maintained the pace of activity, while the commercial and Office construction activity took a beating. Also responsible for the declining employment levels were the lowered demand for contract workers and specialty trades such as electricians and roofers.
The construction activity has seen an impressive come back with strong demand fueled by apartment buildings, and increased homebuilding that included condominiums. Other areas that have shown strong demand include infrastructure and public utilities. Commercial construction has also shown growth though at a slower rate than the other sectors.
The real estate rates in Dallas have been behind the rest of the country and have shown low levels of appreciation in the housing sector. While this is a blessing in the sense that the fear of falling prices and resultant losses that is seen in other parts of the country is absent here. But in recent years some part of Dallas like Frisco, Plano, Coppell, Carrollton. Colleyville, Allen, Southlake , Las Collinas started showing quite a healthy appreciation rate.
When it comes to availability of office and industrial space, Dallas stood fourth nationwide. With over 150 million square feet of office space and more than 600 million square feet of industrial space and vacancy rates that are above 20% for office space and 10% for industrial space, availability is not a problem in Dallas. Added to this is the fact that for tenants, the rental rates are among the lowest.
As for residential space, the occupancy rate was around 90% with growth rates remaining steady. The cost of housing in Dallas is among the lowest for metropolitan areas in the country.
Health care is among the best in the country with Dallas alone having around 90 hospitals, with 15,000 beds. About 11,000 doctors practicing nearly 80 specialties support health care in the metropolis. Dallas is a leader when it comes to several types of surgeries, and ranks second for many other major operations. Some of the Dallas hospitals are ranked among the best nationally.
The quality of life is also good in Dallas. The Dallas arts district has a museum of art, symphony center and a sculptural garden. The Fort Worth arts district has several highly rated museums. In addition to the arts districts, Dallas Fort Worth also has other museums and art galleries numbering nearly 175. About fifty community theaters, several symphony, ballet and opera groups ensure that the population is kept well entertained. Keeping the local populace entertained is also big business in Dallas. The contribution of cultural arts to the economy is nearly 30% amounting to nearly 58 billion in dollar terms.
The Dallas Fort Worth neighborhood has hundreds of large public parks and about 60 lakes and reservoirs. Dallas area also has 150 golf courses and boasts a major presence in football, baseball, hockey, basketball and soccer.
With a low cost of living and less time spent on commuting, Dallas offers better quality of life than many other metropolises.
Dallas also has some of the best educational facilities. This contributes to making Dallas a city with one of the largest number of educated residents among the metropolises. There are more than 1,800 schools in Dallas Fort Worth and the neighboring areas, with a million students enrolled in them. There are more than 240 accredited private schools that offer primary and secondary education to 90,000 students. At college level, nearly 150,000 students are enrolled in a number of public and private institutions in five community college districts. The public universities of the area are leaders in Business and management doctoral level programs and also in Arts and Music. In computer science, DFW was second in the number of PhDs awarded, next only to Silicon Valley.
Dallas is business friendly and was the fastest growing metropolis in terms of employment generation in the 1990s, with a little over 760,000 jobs added. Dallas produces 33% of the GDP of Texas, and accounts for 26% of the state's population. Twenty-eight percent of all the jobs in the state are in Dallas. The GDP of Dallas was 290 billion dollars in 2005. This was equivalent to a GDP that is between the 20 th and 21 st largest economies of the world. DallasTexas has twenty-two Fortune 500 companies. Texas is a labor friendly state and Dallas has more than 5.3% of its work force unionized. The Dallas Market Center is one of the largest in the world for wholesale merchandise.
There is no personal or corporate income tax in Texas. Dallas/ Fort Worth offers a lot of financial incentives such as tax abatements, fee rebates, Freeport tax exemptions, and foreign trade zones.
In the southwest zone, out of 50 cities Dallas was placed at twenty-second place for entrepreneurs. In terms of numbers, Dallas Fort worth has 128,000 businesses and 1500 headquarter operations.
Dallas is centrally located and is no more than four hours by air from any city in the US. Its central zonetime is an advantage because it is one hour behind east coast and two hours ahead of West, thus extending the business hours in both these zones. Eight international and nineteen domestic airlines have operations to the Dallas region. In terms of activity this represented nearly sixty million passengers to 160 locations, and more than 700,000 operations. The international airport is connected to almost every major airport in the world, and has 300 air cargo flights every week. The airport employs nearly 270,000 people and generates more than 14 billion dollars. The DFW international airport was found to be the best airport in North America in a survey that was conducted with performance, value, facilities and operations as the basis for rating.
DFW is the country's largest port and has a major distribution center that connects major areas through Rail, Motor and Truck services. The international airport has major air cargo facilities.
Internal transport in the Dallas area is equally good, with the Dallas Area Rapid Transit connecting an area of nearly 700 square miles and catering to 93 million passengers. The Fort Worth Transportation Authority connects an area of more than 300 square miles through rail, bus and trolley services.
The economy of the state of Texas is picking up and has crossed from being below national average for nearly four years to a position of being ahead. As the largest metropolis of the state accounting for nearly a quarter of the population, Dallas is part of that progress.
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