Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings says North Texas cities must work together to win 'job wars'
SMU economist Cullum Clark said immigrants coming to North Texas tend to be younger and have a higher education than what the area has seen in the past.
By Elvia Limón
Communities Writer
UNIVERSITY PARK — Dallas is the nation's ninth-largest city, but in the eyes of Mayor Mike Rawlings, it's simply a neighborhood that's part of a larger "city-state" known as the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
And that entire area, he said Thursday, will have to work together as a region to compete in "job wars" to help bring even more diversity and economic growth to the region.
"I see myself as a citizen of D-FW, and a mayor of a great neighborhood called Dallas," Rawlings said. "I think we are in a good place in that upcoming job wars that we're going to have."
Rawlings made his remarks at a symposium on the campus of Southern Methodist University to address trends in migration to urban and suburban regions among minorities, immigrants and millennials. It was hosted by the SMU Cox School of School Business Folsom Center for Real Estate, the SMU Economic Center and Houston's Center for Opportunity Urbanism. . . .
North Texas is the third-most diverse metropolitan area in the U.S. behind New York and Houston. That's being driven, in part, by foreign-born residents. Many of them are moving to suburban cities such as McKinney and Frisco, said Cullum Clark, director of the SMU Economics Research Center.
“I did a very nonscientific survey solo and found that if you look at comparable homes in Preston Hollow, they are up 2.6 times more [in price] than comparable homes in Frisco,” Clark said.
Many immigrants coming into North Texas in recent years are from Latin American and Asian countries, Clark said, adding that they tend to be younger and have a higher education than what the area has seen in the past.