NOTE: the bizarre dallas obsession is not so strong as it once was.
it's still an okay town, though. i think this page is now hosted
on dallas.com -- i gave it to them to host, at their request.

Why I love Dallas: the Motherland.
By: Nathan Beach

I live in Dallas. I love Dallas. There are reasons why:

"It is my belief that there is nothing quite so ridiculous as a Dallasite trying to dress and act like a Texan. As a lifelong Dallasite, I've always had the good grace never to wear a hat or cowboy boots. Never even owned a pair. And, like any real Dallasite, I'm suitably scared of horses and guns."

-John Anders, The Dallas Morning News, Wednesday, June 18, 1997.

Some reasons to be proud of Dallas:

• Jack Kilby created the world's first integrated circuit at a Dallas laboratory in September 1958, sparking an electronics revolution that changed the world and created a global market now worth about $1 trillion a year. Kilby was working for Texas Instruments when he invented the integrated circuit. The entire reason you are able to use the Internet, computers, handheld calculators, cellular phones or anything using integrated circuits can be traced to a hot Dallas day in 1958.
• Dallas ranks fourth in the number of Fortune 500 corporate headquarters.
• Dallas holds the highest municipal bond rating among large cities in the United States.
• During 1995, Dallas had its lowest per-capita crime rate since 1974. Violent crime is down 40 percent since 1991.
• Dallas maintains and operates 41 community and neighborhood recreation centers, 232 playgrounds, 173 basketball courts, 112 volleyball courts, 126 play slabs, 258 neighborhood tennis courts, 258 picnic areas, 69 miles of hiking and biking trails, six 18-hole golf courses, two driving ranges, a 100-acre zoo, 260 acres at Fair Park and 477 athletic fields.
• KERA Channel 13 is the most watched PBS station in the United States.
• Fair Park is home to the largest collection of Art Deco architecture in the world.
• Fair Park also hosts the largest state fair in the country.
• The new runway and Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport will decrease air congestion throughout the United States approximately 18 to 22 percent.
• The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School is home to four Nobel Prize winners.
• Dallas has expanded its Convention Center facilities to over 2 million feet. The Center is now capable of accomodating up to 4 major conventions at one time and provides roof-top helicopter landing facilities.
• Dallas Area Rapid Transit provides the only light rail service in the Southwest.
• Dallas offers cultural activities with the world-famous Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center (designed by I.M. Pei), the Dallas Museum of Art, the IMAX Theater, the African American Museum, and more than 60 cultural activities practically every day.
• The arts in Dallas adds $500 million to the annual economy and the cultural budget per capita is $7.23.
• There are many more than 40,000 telecommunication employees on the"Telecom Prairie" housing such companies as Southwestern Bell, AT&T, Alcatel, DSC Communications, Ericsson, Fujitsu, MCI, Northern Telecom, Rockwell, and Sprint. Central Dallas is supp orted by more than 100 miles of fiber optic cable.
• According to the Dallas Women's Covenant, there are more than 81,000 women-owned firms in metropolitan Dallas.
• While many cities across the country are encountering water shortages, the long-term water supply plan developed by Dallas water utilities has ensured that the citizens will have sufficient water supply well through 2050.
• The MasterCard/Visa idea originated in Dallas when three shopping centers, Preston Forest, Preston Royal, and Preston Center combined to issue PrestoCards to be used at all the shopping centers. Eventually, the concept was purchased and expanded.
• The Dallas North Tollway is the Autobahn of the South.
• Dallas naturally has the largest equestrian sculpture in the world: The Mustangs at Las Colinas.
• Dallas also has the largest Cowboy in the World: Big Tex at the State Fair, a 52-foot-tall cowboy.
• Also at the State Fair is the largest Ferris Wheel in the United States.
• Dallas houses the largest Urban Arts District in the United States.
• Dallas has more shopping centers per capita than any United States city.
• Dallas not only has the most shopping centers per capita, but also the first and oldest shopping center: Highland Park Village Shopping Center with such exclusive stores as Ralph Lauren, Hermes, Harold's, Chanel, Calvin Klein, and a grocery store whic h offers valet parking.
• Dallas has more restaurants per capita than...New York City.
• The Dallas Public Library includes the largest Children's library center in the United States.
• Dallas has the world's largest wholesale trade center: Dallas Market Center.
• Nieman Marcus started on the corner of Elm and Murphy in downtown Dallas.
• Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were both Dallasites (not necessarily a good thing).
• H. Ross Perot, one of the greatest businessmen in history (and an Eagle Scout) is a Dallasite.
• Art collections such as the $20 million Hamon Building collection; the $38 million Reves collection at the Dallas Museum of Art; 400 pieces of Egyptian and Nubian art at the DMA; the African-American Museum of Art; the Museum of Africa, Asia, and The Pacific with rare collections of Indonesian art and textiles; the Museum of Contemporary Art; the Museum of the Americas; the Museum of Europe; the Meadows Museum of Art featuring fifteenth- through twentieth-century Spanish art.
• "...even though money can't buy everything, it can buy lots of art, which attracts lots of artists, art collectors, and art critics, of which Dallas has plenty. If you like art, come to Dallas, you will be impressed." -Larenda Lyles Roberts, Dalla s Uncovered.
• In 1960 Elsa Maxwell remarked, "It's really incredible -- incredible, the greatest opera in the world in a little town called Dallas." I can't believe she called Dallas "little", but that was 1960.
• Called "...the most beautiful building west of Venice", the Adolphus Hotel became the first hotel ever to be fully air-conditioned (in 1940).
• Dallas has the world's most famous ranch, Southfork, part of the ridiculously popular television show subsequently called, "Dallas".
• The $81.5 million Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center designed by the famous architect I.M. Pei houses the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the last hand-made Fisk organ actually to be worked on by Mr. Fisk before he died (Opus 101). The Dallas City Hall is also designed by I.M. Pei.
• That loveable dinosaur, Barney, emerged from North Dallas.
• Addition from Edmund Chang:
  "...Dallas is also base (well not really if you want to be nitpicky but it's awful dang close) of Id who has brought us endless hours of bloody fun with Wolfenstein 3d, Doom, Quake, and the soon coming Quake2. Also Dallas is home to Bill's Records which is an excellent place to find rare CD's (though they might be expensive). For example, I have spent who knows how long trying to find the Paranoid Android single CD1 and CD2 and they were, of course, no where to be found... except at Bill's and in a rather large quantity and my personal collection of CD's... well by the end of the week anyway..."
• Addition from sterling@netcomuk.co.uk:
  "I'm quite drunk at the moment (pissed in English). I read Prozac Nation recentley and the bird (chick in American) liked Dallas... is that of use? I live in Croydon.... top town! :)"
• Addition from Travis Fluitt:
  "Dallas is also home to the 1996-97 NHL Central Division Champion Dallas Stars plus some other insignificant sports teams which will remain nameless."
• Addition from noted Dallas lover, Grant Kuneman:
  "how about this for the Dallas page...
  The Mansion on Turtle Creek, 2821 Turtle Creek Blvd (559-2100 or 1-800/527-5432). Voted the best hotel in the US and ninth in the world by Condé Nast Traveler in 1992. Absolute luxury on a landscaped hillside. $175-250.
  i found this in the Rough Guide to the US book."