1979 BUSINESS REVIEW AND FORECAST

The business of Dallas, so the cliché goes, is busi-ness. Actually, that’s true of all cities: Commerce is the reason we’re living all crowded together instead of in little isolated feudal communes. But some cities are oriented toward particular businesses. Think of New York and you think of Wall Street and Madison Avenue. Los Angeles is the entertainment business capital. Detroit is the auto industry. Pittsburgh is steel. Houston is oil. But Dallas and Fort Worth aren’t dominated by a single business. The key to the region’s success has been diversity. Among the twenty largest publicly held corporations listed on page 98, you’ll find manufacturers and retailers, airlines, electronics, energy, and construction firms.

That makes this, our first business review and forecast, a challenge. It’s also the reason we’re doing it. In the Dallas economy, each part affects the fate of the whole. If you’re in, let’s say, the electronics industry you’re probably conscious of not knowing as much as you’d like about other Dallas industries like banking and advertising and fashion. We have provided a summary of the status of each major Dallas / Fort Worth industry – what its successes and failures have been in the past year; what its prospects are for the coming year. We also feature a major report on international trade – the single most important area of challenge and growth for this region, with a major international airport at its very heart. And our answer to the Fortune 500: a list of the hundred largest publicly held industrial corporations with headquarters in Dallas / Fort Worth, as well as the largest banks and insurance companies, compiled by Rauscher Pierce Refsnes Inc. – the first compilation of its kind ever published.