It’s a region that in many ways is the polar opposite of the San Francisco and San Jose metropolitan areas, which have dominated our ranking for the last few years. (They still place second and eighth this year, respectively, among the largest 70 metropolitan areas, though San Jose is down sharply from second place last year.) Unlike the tech-driven Bay Area, Dallas’ economy has multiple points of strength, including aerospace and defense, insurance, financial services, life sciences, data processing and transportation. Employment in the metro area has expanded 20.3% over the past five years and 4.2% last year, with robust job creation in professional and business services, as well as in a host of lower-paid sectors like retail, wholesale trade and hospitality. |