Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It really doesn't. Tell me, what direct flight does DFW have that Houston doesn't have that would matter to a corporation? I can't think of one. The airport may be a deciding factor in a company wanting to move to Austin or DFW, but not Houston or DFW.
Because companies do business in lots of medium-sized metros, and Dallas has better connectivity to the US as a whole than any city not named Chicago.
DFW has 249 Routes to Bush's 185.
31K people go thought Dallas vs 19K at Bush.
You might not think that a company cares about direct flights to small and mid-markets, but it does matter to businesses.
Houston doesn't fly to the California Metros outside of SoCal and SF, It also doesn't fly to Spokane, Fargo, Maddison etc.
Places you care or don't care about doesn't matter. A substantial amount of business is done in small to mid-sized cities. Consider State Farm.
For Telecom yes but for other High Tech no. Remember Houston had Compaq before HP bought it. They still have a large presence in Houston.
Austin dominates DFW and Houston, both in number of high tech companies and in number of people employed in high tech as well with new Oracle, Apple, and google campuses currently under construction.
The "Silicon Cowboys" documentary about Compaq is worth checking out.
DFW gets a lot of transshipment type companies where it makes sense to locate there because of location. It can easily access the Midwest, South, and Southwestern markets and is a short plane ride to the East and West Coast business centers. It also is a bit of a fashion capital of the south and attracted a lot of retailers, at least in its early day. It used to be an O&G center, but Houston has gradually taken away that share.
Houston bet the farm on O&G and is the O&G center of the world. What it does, it does well. It is a multicultural center but it is still mainly leaning on O&G. Because O&G is so big, other industries tend to not want to locate there because they wouldn't get the attention O&G does. It is what it is. Houston basically took away every oil company of importance from Tulsa, New Orleans, and most from Dallas (except Exxon-Mobil).
cBach, Houston didn't "bet the farm" on anything, it's just the way things worked out. Houston did not pick Oil and gas, Oil and Gas picked Houston.
Because companies do business in lots of medium-sized metros, and Dallas has better connectivity to the US as a whole than any city not named Chicago.
DFW has 249 Routes to Bush's 185.
31K people go thought Dallas vs 19K at Bush.
You might not think that a company cares about direct flights to small and mid-markets, but it does matter to businesses.
Houston doesn't fly to the California Metros outside of SoCal and SF, It also doesn't fly to Spokane, Fargo, Maddison etc.
Places you care or don't care about doesn't matter. A substantial amount of business is done in small to mid-sized cities. Consider State Farm.
Houston of course has direct flights to more than just SoCal and SF in California. The most important mid-markets are covered flying out of Houston. DFW has more smaller markets. Houston has more international markets covered.
I also never said a company "didn't care", just that it's not a huge deciding factor when you get to metro areas that are pretty much equal in size and connectivity. State Farm does a lot of domestic business, but how much of that will be people from Dallas offices flying somewhere? They have other regional offices in Phoenix, Chicago, and Atlanta as well. What I'm saying is, it's not as big of a deal when the work is pretty general and there's offices nationwide that can handle it. Especially when nowadays there are plenty of connecting flights (one-stop) that are cheaper than flying direct out of DFW.
DFW is one of the nation's general economies along with Chicago and Atlanta. The work done in these cities can be done in pretty much any city, but they have the right regional spacing plus are inland. Those 3 all share the common similarity of having the most domestic connections. But that's not the end all, be all or else companies wouldn't be moving to smaller metro areas than those 3 as well.
cBach, Houston didn't "bet the farm" on anything, it's just the way things worked out. Houston did not pick Oil and gas, Oil and Gas picked Houston.
Of course with the inlet developing as the main port, then oil in the gulf itself.
But Dallas still got its share by more inland wells to into Oklahoma. Should not leave Dallas out of the Big Oil city too list. Maybe it defined Houston's existence more and Galveston's destruction in the 1900 hurricane. That was a big reason as many survivors boosted Houston's growth then and Oil with a new port sealed its choice ....
Hard to believe Galveston was once for a time Texas largest city. Fate had the hurricane end it totally . Though other Texas cities already became the larger as the census showed before the hurricane...... even if Houston already past Galveston with other cities in Texas by 1900.
But for a time. Galveston held the honor and largest port.
Yep, it took you quite some time to finally get it.
Quote:
This is a different point altogether. I was addressing the "Houston Jobs Pay more" point that was made earlier. In my experience they do not, outside of high paying oil and Gas. DFW has had a higher COL the whole 9 years I've been here, and our wages are the same or higher than what you find in Houston in most industries.
It still misses the point, because DabOnEm was talking about the general wage circumstances in Houston and Dallas resulting from their industry bases. A response regarding your personal industry status would not change those facts.
Quote:
Now regarding the separate point, you are trying to make here.
The growth of DFW has absolutely benefited the state as a whole. The fortune 500 companies who have moved here is good for the whole state. When Houston does well that is also good for the state. This is not the thing I was addressing that you responded to.
No, but it's the ideal that launched this whole side-discussion about jobs and companies in DFW and Houston. What else would you have had in mind regarding how some lakes in North Texas lakes "benefit the whole state" compared to protections for the Texas coast Jack Lance mentioned?
Quote:
Metros of like 2 million people were considered for Amazon. It's silly to blame this on the state, Houston just isn't an appealing place for Amazon to relocate to. That simple. Luckily Dallas didn't get it either.
Not really, since the state has always had a strong hand over the years in standing against and/or undermining quite a few policies Amazon stands for, which were important in its HQ2 search.
Quote:
Dude, you lack reading comprehension yourself. You don't make very well organized arguments either. They are all over the place. It's like the pot calling the kettle black.
First off, my responses to you aren't arguments, they're refutations to (specific) points I disagree with.
Second, you're just floundering with baseless attacks in attempts to save face. Whereas I actually follow-through showcasing the (multiple) errors you make throughout your discussions (i.e. lack of follow-through, confusion of fact and opinion, genetic fallacies, etc), which you often are oblivious to (due to surface-level reading).
People keep talking about things that benefit the entire state but let's face facts. Texas is huge and, in fact as big as entire regions of the US. With the exception of state taxes collected, state universities funded, state and interstate highways built, and state laws passed, it's difficult to make a statewide impact. For example, if Amazon built its second campus in Dallas, what impact would that have had on El Paso or Midland?
People keep talking about things that benefit the entire state but let's face facts. Texas is huge and, in fact as big as entire regions of the US. With the exception of state taxes collected, state universities funded, state and interstate highways built, and state laws passed, it's difficult to make a statewide impact. For example, if Amazon built its second campus in Dallas, what impact would that have had on El Paso or Midland?
The reference to benefits is clearly in terms of the state economy/business prowess, which would be focused on the Texas Triangle population bulk.
Houston of course has direct flights to more than just SoCal and SF in California. The most important mid-markets are covered flying out of Houston. DFW has more smaller markets. Houston has more international markets covered.
I also never said a company "didn't care", just that it's not a huge deciding factor when you get to metro areas that are pretty much equal in size and connectivity. State Farm does a lot of domestic business, but how much of that will be people from Dallas offices flying somewhere? They have other regional offices in Phoenix, Chicago, and Atlanta as well. What I'm saying is, it's not as big of a deal when the work is pretty general and there's offices nationwide that can handle it. Especially when nowadays there are plenty of connecting flights (one-stop) that are cheaper than flying direct out of DFW.
DFW is one of the nation's general economies along with Chicago and Atlanta. The work done in these cities can be done in pretty much any city, but they have the right regional spacing plus are inland. Those 3 all share the common similarity of having the most domestic connections. But that's not the end all, be all or else companies wouldn't be moving to smaller metro areas than those 3 as well.
I wouldn't say it is the deciding factor, but the better connectivity of DFW is definitely on the Pros Side for DFW....That and a better location and a more diverse work force.
This is an interesting thread, though it is more of a Houston vs. Dallas thread. My thoughts:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Treasurevalley92
Because companies do business in lots of medium-sized metros, and Dallas has better connectivity to the US as a whole than any city not named Chicago.
DFW has 249 Routes to Bush's 185.
31K people go thought Dallas vs 19K at Bush.
You might not think that a company cares about direct flights to small and mid-markets, but it does matter to businesses.
Houston doesn't fly to the California Metros outside of SoCal and SF, It also doesn't fly to Spokane, Fargo, Maddison etc.
Places you care or don't care about doesn't matter. A substantial amount of business is done in small to mid-sized cities. Consider State Farm.
Of course having an airport with more domestic destinations is a competitive advantage for an economy that's domestically oriented. That's DFW, Chicago, Atlanta, etc. - they absolutely benefit from having strong domestic links to smaller cities.
But Houston still does have a very strong domestic network at IAH and a superior international one, with a choice of two international airports located on opposite sides of the metro no less. Is that an advantage for internationally oriented companies? Yes, but I think the actual amount of that benefit over peer hub cities with slightly fewer international destinations/frequencies is fairly small, just as DFW's better domestic flight portfolio is a fairly small benefit for most domestic companies. I just don't see evidence that the airports come into play much unless a domestic company REALLY needs that nonstop from Texas to somewhere like Garden City, Kansas or Missoula, MT, or alternatively, an internationally oriented company REALLY needs that nonstop to somewhere like Auckland, Rio, or Singapore. Both airports cover most businesses needs in my view and there would only be limited edge cases in which this really would make a difference.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Treasurevalley92
North Texas has been the darling for corporate relocations and much of that has to do with our vastly superior domestic airport connections and better national image.
I agree that the image is unfair to Houston, which I really like, but it is the truth. Houston wasn't even considered for the Amazon Relocation. That tells you something about their desirability as a corporate relocation site. For the record, I'm glad Dallas didn't get it.
Another reason Dallas does so well on corporate relocations: We have a large number of massive suburbs that put together very competitive relocation packages in the own right, state benefits aside.
Houston only has one burb over 100k while DFW has 12, not even counting Dallas or Fort Worth. 4 are more than double the size of the Woodlands. Frisco or Plano can put together much more compelling relocation packages than the Woodlands, even if the woodlands is wealthy.
So the corporate relocation thing. So, yes, DFW does attract somewhat more of these, but let's also realize that, with few exceptions, only really big relocations make the news. Hundreds of smaller companies relocate to Houston and Dallas both yearly and the rankings of those companies flip flop yearly - Houston had more total relocations/expansions in 2015 and 2017, and DFW had more in 2016 and 2018. Both are beasts. Check out the corporate relo thread in C vs. C for more info: //www.city-data.com/forum/gener...corporate.html
The other difference, when referring to large F500 companies (which Houston I think has 21 and DFW has 22 or 23, a small difference despite all of the hype surrounding relocations), is that historically, large Houston companies have tended to have origins in Houston and were generally founded, grown, and incubated in Houston. Large DFW companies were generally, with a few notable exceptions, large before they chose to move to DFW - they tend to go there to enable themselves further growth. And of course, when we're talking about domestic US companies and where they choose to locate, DFW will always have a bit of an advantage due to a more centralized location. But most of the differences concerning on-the-ground desirability between the two are marginal and subjective imo.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DabOnEm
Another reason why DFW is a corporate magnet while Houston is not currently is because of the difference in pay. The energy industry generally pays very well, meanwhile DFW's pay for its general economy is not as high. That has changed in the last 2-3 years as many employers from out of state (California) let people keep their California pay. What that's done to the DFW-natives and housing market for them is not too good.
This is right on point in my experience. DFW pay is generally a little lower for similar jobs because O&G pays better than most other industries, but the gap has closed primarily due to jobs from more expensive areas, as you alluded to. Houston's job market is more stratified - more high-end, high salary jobs, but also more low-end jobs as well.
I remember once when I was in DC, I had a conversation with a Federal employee about locality pay. Locality pay is the additional amount the Federal government adds to baseline salaries, which differs significantly by metropolitan area. I looked up the charts, and realized that Houston has the third highest locality pay in the country. Only New York and San Francisco have higher Federal pay grades. Places like Los Angeles, Washington, Honolulu, Miami, Chicago, and any number of more expensive places have lower Federal pay. I was curious to why this was as Houston has a relatively low cost of living, so I investigated.
What I found was that cost of living has very little to do with how the Federal government chooses to calculate locality pay. The real driver is how much the Federal government feels it has to pay in order to compete with the local private sector, based on the jobs the government needs as well as the economic mix of the private sector. Long story short, the O&G industry pays so well that the government tends to lose top-tier talent (particularly engineering) to energy companies, so they have to pay more to retain employees.
(On a side note, this is why I think Houston has low chance of getting a lot of additional Federal facilities, such as the notional Space Force HQ - its more expensive to pay Federal employees here than it is nearly anywhere else.)
This isn't the whole story and as I said above, DFW has closed the salary gap significantly as housing prices have increased, the DFW area has continued to attract new jobs and companies, and Houston has gone through the oil bust and then Harvey. The per capita personal income gap was approximately $4,000 in Houston's favor in 2015 (which I believe was still lower than it had been historically). In 2017 (last year available) the two metros were essentially even on that metric.
In general, as usual, I think a lot of information that people in North Texas get about Houston is simply based on one thing - the tremendous amount of boosterism present there. Business-wise, the Dallas News blasts every single development that is positive for the area with multiple, high-profile news stories. Economic development and commercial organizations are much more prominent and influential. Marketing is a huge thing there. But when you look at the numbers, I think the hype exceeds the reality (and always has, frankly).
Meanwhile, in Houston, its the complete opposite - on the ground, no one even cared whether or not Amazon considered coming here for example. That's not to say business organizations and the powers that be aren't at work to recruit corporations and compete, its just that you hear a lot less about it than when I lived in Dallas, and its more limited in scope. The Chronicle does cover business happenings, but you generally have to actually read the business section and dig for them - the paper doesn't really act as another arm of the CofC like the Dallas News does.
I can only think of two times in my entire life when a big topic of conversation (among non C/D types like us) was something having to do with a company in Houston - the Enron debacle in the early 2000s, and when Continental and United merged and the city lost Continental HQ, which was more a topic of conversation because the city loved Continental moreso than the loss of the HQ itself (though egos were certainly bruised by losing that battle to Chicago, much as Dallas lost the Boeing battle to them).
TL;DR version - both cities do largely similar things in slightly different ways, but all of this chatter about either having some sort of huge competitive advantage over the other is mostly conjecture with a healthy side of pride-engendered nonsense.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
