Historical: OKC vs. Dallas Growth
In another thread someone mentioned that for years OKC and Dallas were basically on equal footing, and then Dallas kind of ballooned and outpaced us pretty dramatically. I've been trying to figure out why this happened, to see if there are any lesson's learned that OKC could incorporate as the city moves forward. I thought it would be interesting to start a thread on this for others to offer up comments/research.
Here are some things I found out that I think eventually helped Dallas to grow in size:
- Dallas politicians have always been strong in lobbying for commerce. In 1911 the city landed one of only 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks in the nation.
- As early as the 1930's Dallas was becoming a very oil rich city. As far as I can tell, at one point there were over 120 oil companies operating in Dallas county. I think this happened because pretty much all the private banks in the area got together and agreed to offer any loan an oil business would want at a considerable discount.
- In 1949 Vought Aerospace moved its operations from the East Coast to Dallas at the Navy's direction, "because of fears of having two main aircraft manufacturers located closely together on the East Coast." I can't find any historical evidence, but my guess is that there was some behind-the-scenes political wheeling and dealing that was done to get this to happen.
- Many large satellite companies moved with Vought. Then more with them. A critical mass was being established. Then in 1974 DFW was opened, which drew even more large corporate businesses to the area.
- Many of the people who reaped the benefits of all of this reinvested in the city in the form of creating new businesses. These Texas business owners in many cases refuse to sell out to others over the years due to what I can only guess is a 'Texas pride' thing.
So I guess what I'm thinking is first they went after the money and made sure it stayed there, either through some very intelligent discounting to draw people in, or through a deliberate effort on the part of business people and politicians to swing deals and try to draw businesses to the area, and an unrelenting desire to keep Texas businesses Texas owned.
I think this is still being seen today. I've noticed that Texas Congress people, regardless of party, tend to all band together and go after things that make sense for Texas.
So I'm thinking maybe some lessons we learn from all of this is always try to make deals in the best interest of OKC, work the back-room angle and talk to people... try to convince them to do things in the city's favor, and perhaps most importantly go after big money and the money makers and everything else will follow.
Bookmarks