World's best list

Dallas tumbles 26 spots in prestigious new list of world's 100 best cities

Dallas fell from No. 47 last year to No. 73.

Big economic investments and population growth are definitive highlights of Dallas' success over the last year, but they weren't enough to keep it within the top 50 best cities in the world, according to a new prestigious report.

The annual "World's Best Cities" report, compiled by Canada-based real estate and tourism marketing advisors Resonance Consultancy, quantifies the relative qualities of place, reputation, and competitive identity for the world's principal cities with metropolitan populations of 1 million or more.

Dallas comes in at No. 73 for 2024, slipping from its position as No. 47 in the 2023 ranking.

London topped the list again for 2024, followed by Paris (No. 2), New York (No. 3), Tokyo (No. 4), and Singapore (No. 5).

The report primarily focuses on Dallas' ability to show a thriving "economic reality," rather than explaining its ranking.

Over 10,000 corporate headquarters have found their place in Dallas, the report says, making it the city with the highest concentration of large employers in the U.S.

The report praised the city's consistently high ranking Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, which landed an honor as North America's best airport by the Airports Council International earlier in 2023.

"[The airport's] planned $3-billion Terminal F project [is] possibly back on the table, given DFW’s rebound of 73.4 million passengers in 2022 — an increase of 17 percent over a busy 2021," the report's author wrote.

Two major upcoming projects were highlighted in the report's overview of Dallas: the new 2.5 million square foot convention center, and the rebuilding of a major highway through the city.

"[2028] should see the trenching of the city’s car-worshiping Interstate 345 that cut off Black neighborhoods when it was built in the early 1970s," the report said.

Dallas' cultural footprint has also substantially developed throughout the years. According to the report, Dallas is home to "America's sixth-largest LGBTQIA+ community," but it's not the only thing that makes the city so diverse (and fun).

"On 20 square blocks of mixed-use space, institutions like the Dallas Museum of Art, the Crow Museum of Asian Art, theaters, and symphony and opera venues all power an improving [cultural status]," the report said.

Austin and Houston also earned spots on the World's Best Cities list for 2024, but only one took a significant tumble from the previous year's rankings. Houston fell from No. 42 in last year's report to its current rank as No. 66.

Austin, on the other hand, maintained its position as No. 43 for the second consecutive year.

The top 10 best cities in the world, according to Resonance Consultancy, are:

No. 1 – London, United Kingdom
No. 2 – Paris, France
No. 3 – New York, New York
No. 4 – Tokyo, Japan
No. 5 – Singapore
No. 6 – Dubai, United Arab Emirates
No. 7 – San Francisco, California
No. 8 – Barcelona, Spain
No. 9 – Amsterdam, Netherlands
No. 10 – Seoul, South Korea

The full list of cities and the report's methodology can be found on worldsbestcities.com.

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Weed News

Texas AG Ken Paxton sues Dallas over decriminalization of marijuana

Photo courtesy of US Fish & Wildlife

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The City of Dallas has been sued by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for its efforts to decriminalize marijuana.

According to a release, Paxton has sued the city for adopting a city charter amendment that would decriminalize marijuana-related offenses and prohibit police from enforcing Texas law.

That amendment was Proposition R, or Dallas Freedom Act, which decriminalizes possession of four ounces of marijuana or less. Voters passed the amendment in the November 5 election, with 67 percent voting in favor.

The lawsuit, filed against the Dallas City Council, alleges that Proposition R is unconstitutional and violates Texas drug laws criminalizing any amount of marijuana.

Paxton says that cities can't "pick and choose which state laws to follow." He's proposing a permanent injunction to stop Proposition R from going into effect.

"The City of Dallas has no authority to override Texas drug laws or prohibit the police from enforcing them," says Paxton in a statement. "This is a backdoor attempt to violate the Texas Constitution, and any city that tries to constrain police in this fashion will be met swiftly with a lawsuit by my office.”

Before the recent election, possession of two to four ounces of marijuana could result in a punishment of 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine.

Ground Game Texas, the activist nonprofit that has also helped get marijuana decriminalization on the ballot in elections across Texas, first got the issue on the ballot in July with the necessary 50,000 signatures.

Dallas is not the only city to be sued; Paxton also filed lawsuits against five other cities in Austin, Denton, Elgin, Killeen, and San Marcos in January for their ballots and policies decriminalizing marijuana.

Both Austin and San Marcos had a judge overturn their cases, according to a FOX 4 report.

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