The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is following a group of about 100 leaders from the Atlanta metropolitan area who are in North Texas this week to see how we do business. Mayor Mike Rawlings addressed them last night at the Nasher:
“I’m a competitive guy – I played football,” said Rawlings. “And you are my main competition.”
He also made it clear he can make the argument that in the tussle between the two, he thinks the upper hand belongs to the 6.7 million person metro region known as DFW – for Dallas-Ft. Worth.
“We are basically one market now and DFW is the fourth-largest in market in the United States,” he said. “There’s New York, Los Angeles and Chicago and then there’s DFW.”
Earlier they’d met Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price, who told them “What is good for Fort Worth is good for Dallas, and vice versa.” And during that same visit:
Much of the change in Dallas and Fort Worth is a bow to reality, said Mike Eastland, executive director of the North Central Texas Council of Governments. “The world has forced us to act regionally.”