In 1999, when Atlanta’s annual LINK trip first came to Dallas, the economic rivalry between the two cities was a bit one-sided, said the man who greeted them then as mayor.
But now, said Ron Kirk, a lot has changed – especially the resurgence of a Dallas once beset by the most un-Texas of attitudes: a feeling of inferiority.
“Twenty years ago, when I was mayor, Dallas was obsessed with Atlanta,” he said to the more than 100 business, transportation, economic development, political and philanthropic leaders who are here for a four-day look at the region now. “We were competing and it wasn’t much off a competition because we were losing.”
Atlanta was, for Dallas, a model for how a southern city could grow, Kirk said. “I don’t know if you know, but in the early 1990s, Dallas actually hired a consultant to tell it how to be more like Atlanta.”
Kirk later went on to serve as the U.S. trade representative, and he made glancing reference today to the argument about the merits of those pacts.
“You want to see the economy grind to a halt, let the United States withdraw from a world in which 95 percent of our customers live somewhere else.”
Whatever his other experience, Kirk is something of an icon in Dallas political history because he was the first black mayor of Dallas, holding office from 1995 to 2001. In his talk to the Atlanta group, he mentioned that landmark, then said he was not the only one to come from Dallas and be elected the first African-American mayor in a large city.
He cited four other men, including Maynard Jackson, Atlanta’s first black mayor, and Tom Bradley, first black mayor of Los Angeles. “I was really the fifth ‘first black mayor of Dallas,’” he said.
This week’s trip, organized by the Atlanta Regional Commission, is the 20th LINK trip. And Kirk’s remarks touched something of a nerve among the participants since so many were already fretting that Dallas has made greater progress than Atlanta in building its infrastructure, knitting its pieces and luring corporate relocations.
Not that metro Atlanta hasn’t grown and prospered, only that Dallas has pushed farther with some efforts – like expanding transit options – on which Atlanta seemingly has stalled out.
Even so, Kirk assured the audience that the challenges are not like the troubles of cities with few resources or choices, but are the concerns that come with success. “We are privileged to be two regions that have high-class problems,” he said.
And the rivalry too has little downside, he said. “Atlanta and Dallas can continue to have the most robust and vibrant competition and the winners will be Atlanta and Dallas.”
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