When you think of Dallas, most of us think of the once famous series about the Ewing family of oil tycoons. But the city in the American state of Texas also went down in history as the place of death of the popular president John Fitzgerald Kennedy. It was here that he was assassinated on November 22, 1963…
This ancient but not forgotten tragic event associates one of the few dark faces of an otherwise very likeable city. Unfortunately, Dallas has the highest crime rate in the United States among cities with a population of over a million. In 2004, there were 8,960 crimes per 100,000 residents, compared to “only” 2,800 in New York.
But Dallas has far more faces that its visitors can see. It is a city of trade fairs, three airports and the headquarters of a number of important commercial and industrial companies. Dallas is the third most populous city in the state of Texas and the ninth in the United States. Based on data from the 2004 census, 1.2 million people live here. The city is also large territorially, covering 997 km². Dallas is the most important cultural, economic and industrial center of the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metropolitan area (Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex), which with 5.7 million inhabitants and 12 counties is the fifth largest metropolitan area in the United States. Dallas is among 11 American cities that are classified as Global Cities and is marked with a high degree of “Gamma World City”.
Thanks to its strategic location in the state of Texas, it offers many advantages that it can certainly take advantage of. Although oil is an inherent part of this part of the world, Dallas currently excels far more in high-tech fields. Companies such as Dell Computers or Texas Instruments operate here. Texas is the second largest producer of all US states and attracts new factories all the time. The reason for such popularity among investors is the low cost of living here. Texas collects no income tax, either from individuals or corporations! One of the last companies that decided to settle in the area is Toyota Motor Corp. It will begin building “Tundra pickup trucks” in nearby San Antonio, ostensibly because it wants to do so in the middle of the country’s largest market for such cars. The interesting thing is that Texans like everything big to huge, that’s why they also like trucks, which they use as personal cars. Some car manufacturers even produce a special set of trucks just for Texas, the so-called Texas edition, which are even bigger than the usual ones.
In recent times, according to iamaccepted.com, Dallas “extracted” a lot even from the devastating hurricane Katrina, which brought refugees from the neighboring state of Louisiana to the city. Due to the low occupancy of houses and apartments in Dallas, many have stayed here permanently. The area also attracts people thanks to generally low housing prices, real estate prices rise much more slowly here than in other coastal states, and there is an almost unlimited amount of usable land. The important thing is that you don’t mind getting into a big “truck” and driving dozens of miles to work every day.
In addition to high-tech fields and the oil industry, airlines have a significant share of the market in Dallas and the surrounding area. Texas is home to three of the seven largest US airlines (American Airlines, Continental Airlines, Southwest Airlines). Although they experienced a slight downturn after the attacks of September 11, 2001, air transportation continues to increase in price and thus the Texas economy benefits greatly. After all, for example, American Airlines in Dallas alone employs a comparable number of people as all the mining companies in the Dallas/Forth Worth agglomeration combined.
The economic success of the city is undoubtedly attractive, but in the eyes of the Czechs, the fact that an incredible one and a quarter million of our compatriots live in the city and its surroundings will certainly add to its attractiveness. It is also one of the few American cities where you can taste beer that is at least apparently similar to the domestic beer. After all, Czech emigrants were also involved in its production. If he wants to get to know the local culture, then head among the cowboys, who will certainly be happy to saddle your horse or bull.
Dallas even has direct ties to the Czech Republic, since 1991 it has been a partner city of Brno. Both cities cooperate in various areas, the most important and most beneficial is probably the cooperation between universities – the Faculty of Medicine of Masaryk University and Southern Methodist University.
For years, for example, mutual exchange stays of students and graduates, study stays of Brno doctors and teachers from the MU Faculty of Medicine at the Southwestern Medical Center of the University of Texas and others have been taking place. As part of the partnership, Moravian artists present themselves overseas with some regularity, and vice versa, for example in July 2005 the Days of Texas Culture were held in Wallachia. Intensive cooperation also takes place on the basis of expatriate associations and associations such as Sokol, the Czech Women’s Circle or the Friends of the USA, etc.
