posted on April 01, 2010 21:57
Dallas-Fort Worth is positioned to be a world capital in the 21st century because of demographic growth, available land and a pro-growth business posture, author and scholar Joel Kotkin said at a Dallas Regional Chamber luncheon Wednesday.
More broadly, the United States is unique among developed nations in that it has a large and growing population and room to accommodate that growth, said Kotkin.
He is the author of a new book called “The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050,” a professor at Chapman University in Orange County, Calif., and writes the "New Geographer" column for Forbes.com.
Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston are well-positioned because of available talent, cheap land and the decentralized structure of their business districts.
“When companies are looking to expand, they’re looking at Dallas,” he said.
Compared with other urban centers in the U.S., Dallas has a high percentage of families with children. Cities with the amenities to accommodate families will have an advantage over more expensive, less child-friendly locales as members of the Millennial generation reaches their 30s and begin looking to buy homes and settle down, Kotkin said.
That bodes well for suburbs and the real estate industry, he said. He predicts that older suburbs will in the next few decades enjoy a resurgence as home to young families as well as aging baby boomers.
He had praise for new development projects along the Trinity River in downtown Dallas and office developments such as the Legacy office park in Plano. Those projects fit with his vision of future cities built with many work centers as opposed to megacities with one giant downtown core.
“Dallas and Houston are at the cutting edge of new urban development,” he said.
Kotkin projects the U.S. population will grow by about 100 million in the next 40 years. And that will mean greater demand for new real estate development and construction.
By 2030, half of all buildings will have been built after 2000, Kotkin said.
“Actually, there’s a great future in the real estate industry,” Kotkin said.
Office space will see less demand than other facets of real estate as a growing portion of the work force opts to telecommute to work and a growing portion of business productivity comes from very small “microbusinesses,” Kotkin said.
The challenges that come with that future growth include developing infrastructure to keep pace with population growth, maintaining green space in between developing areas and, most importantly, investing in a robust education system.
Kotkin, a California resident, recommends first focusing on K-12 education.
“We really have to focus on how do we provide jobs with upward mobility for poor kids,” he said.
March 24th, 2010 | Dallas Business Journal, by cwatt@bizjournals.com