The Best Little Rivalry in Texas

As gritty Houston booms, urbane Dallas booms back

To folks in Dallas, Houston is a loud, boorish, blue-collar place, overwhelmed by nouveau riche high rollers and overrun with Cadillacs and pickup trucks. To folks in Houston, Dallas is a dull, snobbish, white-collar town, dominated by banking and defense interests, and overrun with Rolls-Royces and Mercedes.

Dallas (pop. 905,000) and Houston (pop. 1,594,000), Texas’ largest cities, are separated by 240 miles of small towns and open spaces. They are also separated by one of the most enduring municipal rivalries since Athens slandered Sparta. “Houston,” says Dallas Mayor Jack Evans of the grittier rival city, “doesn’t wear well.” Besides, add Dallas chauvinists, Houstonians are the ugly Americans of Texas. Dallasites, responds Houston Post Columnist Lynn Ashby, “are the Swiss of Texas.” What is more, says Houston Businessman Lan Bentsen, Dallas residents “have no sense of humor.”

The rivalry intensified in the 1970s as an oil-industry boom lifted Houston to new peaks of wealth and power—and new acts of brazenness—while Dallas, long the more prosperous of the two cities, watched with chagrin. Today Dallas is on the rise again, but Houston is not exactly somnolent. In a move that has made Dallas aghast, a group of Houston boosters is offering college football’s Southwest Conference $3 million in cash to lure the postseason Cotton Bowl game from Dallas, where it has been played for the past 45 years. “They have more chance of moving the stadium than they do the game,” declares John F. Scovell, president of the Cotton Bowl Athletic Association and a prominent Dallas real estate developer. Says Bentsen, who organized the theft attempt: “If it’s a feud, it’s a positive one.”

A onetime cotton depot, Houston was the nation’s fastest-growing major metropolitan area in the past decade. Population is up 70% since 1960, and since 1975 the city has led the nation in residential construction. Space for the sprawl is no problem because miles of prairie scrubland lie in three directions, and towns along the way are simply annexed. Nor does government interfere: Houston has no zoning laws. Dallas, however, is hemmed in by suburbs that resist annexation, and the city’s urban planners have carefully guided expansion. Admits Dallas Developer Scovell: “Sure, we were jealous of Houston’s growth. Anyone who tells you different is a liar.”

Houston’s helter-skelter development has a troublesome side. Traffic is becoming a round-the-clock snarl, and 1,000 more cars and trucks drive onto the city’s potholed roads every week. Houston has badly mismanaged its water supply. Flooding is routine. Parts of the city, built over increasingly depleted underground water, have sunk as much as a foot since 1973. Concedes James Ketelsen, chairman of Houston-based Tenneco Corp.: “Houston lacks the forward planning and leadership to keep up with services. It’s obvious the city hasn’t kept pace with growth.” The city may have learned its lesson. Last week voters overwhelmingly elected Kathryn Whitmire, 35, the city controller, as mayor. Whitmire promises a prudent, businesslike approach to “the problems that have arisen from the wealth we have.”

Dallas, in contrast, has always been justly proud of its municipal competence. Politics in both cities are dominated by local business oligarchies, but the business men who run Dallas do it better. That former trading post’s relatively orderly development could give it the long-term economic edge over Houston. “Dallas will probably be stronger,” says Trammell Crow, a real estate mogul with stakes in both cities. “There’s no reason to relocate in Houston unless you have to.”

Many Texans are willing to call it a draw. “Dallas was bigger first,” says Houston Department Store Owner Robert Sakowitz. “Then Houston caught up. Now neither is in the other’s shadow.” Still, neither town seems able, or willing, to stop one-upping the other. Houston has a 44-acre Galleria complex of stores and offices, but Dallas will shortly have its own Galleria, one acre smaller and built by the same developer. Dallas has a gorgeous new city hall designed by I.M. Pei; Houston has the nearly complete 75-story Texas Commerce Tower, also designed by Pei, which will be the Southwest’s tallest building. Houston has one-third more office space under construction than Dallas, but Dallas has the gargantuan eight-year-old Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport. Not to be outdone, Houston last month doubled the capacity of its Intercontinental Airport. In Houston, patrons of the nationally respected Grand Opera are raising $65 million for a new theater. The mandarins of Dallas are planning a downtown arts district that will include a new symphony hall and a museum.

To the outside world, such competitiveness might seem a bit petty. After all, Dallas and Houston are both rich and flourishing, with low unemployment rates (under 5%). And the two cities compete less with each other for capital investment and prestige than they do with the nation’s other cities. Above all, Dallasites and Houstonians have something of abiding importance in common. As Columnist Ashby says of the two rivals, “Their family name is still Texas.”

—By Kurt Andersen. Reported by Sam Allis/Dallas and Houston