AT&T moving to Dallas

[traficdogn]

While I have already disliked ATT/cingular products, I don't take this move very personally. Quite a few corporations change headquarters when a new CEO comes to helm.

It is the easiest way to do a re-shuffling of management. 2ndly, the former head-quarters of Cingular used to be Dallas. Here is a short clip about the current CEO.

In 2005, Mr. Stephenson was appointed to the new AT&T's board of directors.

Additionally, he served on the Cingular Wireless board of directors from 2001 to 2006 and was chairman in 2003 - 2004.

As you can see, Mr. Stephenson made it big with AT&T after/during his work at Cingular.

[imaterry78259]

Like I said earlier> Southwest Airlines & La Quinta have left SA and move to Dallas. Now AT&T

[hello13685]

I think that Tekka-Maki makes some great points. You can't win business when your clients and potential partners arrive in business suits and AT&T execs have to entertain them and conduct business negotiations in an old, historic downtown with a lot of boarded-up windows and no other suits to be seen. Seriously, think about it. Bad business image.

AT&T has broken up with SA. And as far as the airport excuse goes: have you always told people the real reason(s) you were breaking up with them, especially if the real reason would insult the person? Probably not. The real reason(s) for this departure may very well be in line with some of the image issues raised above and in other posts that would be insulting to mention.

[AnthonySA]

http://megsoftconsulting.net/sites/f...AEF/ghetto.jpg

^--- man DTSA does need an uplift

[traficdogn]

Originally Posted by hello13685

I think that Tekka-Maki makes some great points. You can't win business when your clients and potential partners arrive in business suits and AT&T execs have to entertain them and conduct business negotiations in an old, historic downtown with a lot of boarded-up windows and no other suits to be seen. Seriously, think about it. Bad business image.

I thought about it, and what you say does not make sense.

Businesses care about getting the highest level service at lowest cost. The executives that care about entertainment and looking at other suits are the ones going out of business.

That is one of major reasons why so much of our work has been outsourced to other countries.

[guerosincero]

The horse has rigor mortis by this point, but indulge me with a few flogs of my own.

To those in the of-course-they-moved crowd, I don't disagree with the sentiment. That we didn't see this coming with all of the grumbling about the direct flights issue is amazing to me.

Not really sure what could have been done about it; it's not like you can double or triple your airport's capacity in a couple of years, but it doesn't even seem there was an all-hands-on-deck plan in place. Perhaps there was just an assumption on everyone's part that it would never cause such a catastrophic loss to our business community.

Would a comprehensive airport plan have made a difference? Probably not. I think Dallas is much more at&t's speed, and we were lucky to have had them in the first place. Why we didn't recognize that and try to spend the last sixteen years growing into something that would support such a corporate titan is a question worth answering.

Not that it will make a difference now to at&t, but it may make a difference in the future to some other company or to the armed services. What if these grumblings from the Army about Camp Bullis's viability due to encroaching development are legitimate? Will we be sitting here seven years from now scratching our heads after Army South moves elsewhere? And do you think the developers will be sad to see them go? Of course not, they would have just gotten the line on hundreds of acres of property that they can overbuild with cookie-cutter homes.

But all is not lost, and perhaps this is the kind of wake up call that we have needed to get our city leadership, and more importantly, the community, to recognize our weaknesses and attempt to address them going forward.

Upon hearing about this and having it sink in, I was reminded of Mark Cuban's comments about our wonderful (though admittedly murky) river. While I seem to remember efforts were already underway over the river's appearance before he made his comments about it looking like a muddy ditch or something along those lines, his comments really put a spotlight on the problem. The river still has a long way to go, but at least they appear to be really trying to tackle the problem, whereas before, the groupthink would not allow dissent on the river's appearance. Ultimately, it comes down to checking your blind spots, and our city does a poor job of that sometimes.

While I agree that being known principally as a tourist town can create limits (real or imagined) on a city's ability to attract other types of industry, we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water.

Tourism is one of the few sectors that brings money to a particular economy without taking jobs out of that economy; indeed, it actually creates jobs in that economy, albeit low-paying ones. Others sectors with the same impact that come to mind are large educational institutions (like UT Austin) and large retirement destinations.

Tourists, college students and retirees all have in common the fact that they are, in the main: not on our roads during rush hours, not sending their kids to our schools, and not taking up jobs in our economy, but they bring their money here from other economies and put it in our economy.

Another benefit of tourism is that it underwrites a lot of the cost associated with keeping a place inviting and aesthetically pleasing. While Dallas and Houston have enormous downtown areas, they were not, until very recently, inhabitable outside of work hours, and still lag behind San Antonio in potential for urban living.

[firstclassflyer]

Originally Posted by Paka

Man...If I were you, I would get out of here QUICK...while the getting is good!!!! ESPECIALLY since the rush out of here by the masses will be hindered by our lack of travel options!

God bless Southwest Airlines!

[sinsativ]

Well, as far as I'm concerned, I came from Houston, fell in love with San Antonio over 30 years ago, and have stayed. The congestion the traffic that was in Houston then, is what SA is having to deal with now. If AT & T is leaving, and we lose a few big dollar Starbucks, so be-it. Houston lost the Oilers. A few years later, another team came in an took their place. This poser, with the thesaurus beside the computer so that he/she can spew words of many syllables to do nothing more than glorify his on self importance, is pathetic. For him/her, I feel truly sorry, my deepest sympathy go out to you since you feel the only way to get yourself heard is to pretend you're someone else. Hell, we might even like you for who you are. Thats what San Antonio is really about. We like everybody. San Antonio was around a long time before baby bell, we helped make it AT &T, not the other way around. They are taking away what we gave them. They are like a child growing up and leaving the parent. We feel as if we've been shunned(I know you've got that big ole book of words there, so find me something fanzier (sic)) but, on the other hand, we're also proud to know that we were a stepping stone for one of the biggest companies in the world to grow in. It's sometimes not where you are, or who you are that counts, but where you came from. The biggest question those AT &T big-wigs got to ask, and all of us true San Antonio die hards is? "Next year, when it's down to the Play-offs, will they be rooting for the Mavericks, or, "THE SAN ANTONIO SPURS!!!!!!" (if the Mavericks go that far...

[tekka-maki]

I think the highways here are actually pretty good here, once you get used to this whole 'roundabout' business. Much better highway options than Chicago; of course that has to do with historical density.

But man do the natives get perturbed when someone mentions how 'fugly' DT is...

Note: Many parts outside 1604 on the W. Side haven't been annexed, hence they are not city of S.A., so no lights.

[crispyfried.]

Originally Posted by the 77ist

and finally improvement of highways, interstates, and expressways throughout the city (in addition to the addition of a tollway) would be the smartest schematic in my opinion.

You do understand the city has nothing to do with the freeways, right? They have no control over them. Please tell me you knew this?