2022-01-27
39 分钟Last week, we got on a plane and flew to Dallas, Texas, because we wanted to know why everybody else is going there.
Over the past decade, more people have relocated to the Dallas Fort Worth metro area than anywhere else in the US.
It is on track to become the third largest metro area in the country, jumping ahead of Chicago and trailing only New York and Los Angeles.
In that episode, the first of two, we focused on the city of Dallas itself, how it grew over the past century, despite the lack of traditional attributes like a port or even a big river.
We heard about Dallas history of racism and its continuing inequities around income, housing, and education.
We learned that the city's reputation of friendliness is well deserved.
We also learned that real estate developers have too much leverage in city hall, and that the mayor has too little leverage along the way.
We ate way too much barbecue, saw some wonderful art, and we sulked a bit when the mayor said he would pick us up at the airport and then didn't.
Today on Freakonomics radio, we zoom out to look at the bigger metro area and the bigger issues, including Texas politics.
A really big part of the state population lives in places that are really quite purple.
We visit one of those rapidly purpling areas, which also happens to be the suburban outpost of the Dallas Cowboys.
We were a city of 6000 people.
We're now up to 215,000.
We ask how the city of Dallas feels about those booming suburbs.
We are absolutely competing with them and.
How Dallas natives feel about all the newcomers.
I don't like it.
I'm just being honest.
It's too congested for me.
Well, it's gonna be a little bit more congested, at least for the rest of this episode.