It’s definitely an improvement over last year’s ranking of 14th, with Dallas coming in 7th in this year’s Best-Performing Cities poll from the Milken Institute. The Dallas-Plano-Irving MSA beat Houston-Sugarland-Baytown (8th) but came in behind top-ranking Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos.
The poll tries to objectively measure job creation and retention, as well as the economic vitality of the nation’s metropolitan statistical areas. Thanks to Austin’s booming technology sector and growth in high-paying jobs, put the Texas capital city ahead. Here’s what the authors attribute to Austin’s lead:
This year’s Best-Performing City, Austin, is a case study in concocting the proper recipe for economic vitality. A rising technology center, it is creating high-quality jobs that improve the region’s overall wage structure. Economic development officials rightly tout its business-friendly, low-tax, low-regulation climate when recruiting outside the state, particularly when soliciting California firms. They also herald the business startups of local entrepreneurs, the spinouts from the University of Texas, Austin, and the number and quality of UT graduates.
Austin’s technology base is fairly diversified: hardware, chips and communication gear, computer system design, Internet-related services, and biomedical research. The metro has its share of homegrown tech companies — Dell, Freescale Semiconductor, Flextronics International, and National Instruments among them — and has been successful at attracting technology icons from elsewhere as well. The financial services sector is also adding jobs.
Dallas made big gains this year, though, moving up seven spots thanks to its active financial services market and the growth of technology-related companies. It has one of the most diverse economies, the report claims, and Dallas’ economic growth was one of the fastest in the past year.
What we noticed in the report that many Dallas homebuyers are noticing now, too, is the higher cost of living within the Dallas city limits, especially in middle-class neighborhoods. The Milken report cautions that this could push companies and wage-earners to move outside the area, a trend that Austin is seeing right now with families finding housing within the city of Austin to be overpriced. Still, wage growth helps buffer high housing costs, an area in which Dallas trails.
How do you think Dallas can become an even better-performing city?
Technology can be a giant pain in the butt, but it can also keep us remarkably productive. It’s also pretty amazing that what we have now often wasn’t available 10 years ago, even, but there is an entire generation that has never known that you couldn’t always carry your computer in your back pocket.
