a four-bedroom home in Philadelphia costs around $500,000, compared to $150,000 to $200,000 in Nashville. A part-time dental hygienist, Hines is the sole proprietor of image consultant firm New Attitude Inc., which has taught entertainers and corporate executives style and social graces. The fiftysomething maven also found Nashville to be ripe with opportunities for both entrepreneurs and professionals in her field.
Dental hygienists right out of school can make $185 to $200 per day. For experienced hygienists, the pay is around $250 to $300 per day. As a business owner, Hines likes the city’s centralized location, making it a magnet for people across the country. “Nashville affords everyone opportunities to fulfill their dreams in fields like music, sports, and art,” she says. And educational institutions such as Meharry Medical College, of which Hines is an alumna, attract ambitious people.
Hines points to gains African Americans have made since she was a child. “When I was growing up in Nashville, it was 8% black,” she says. Today, it’s about 27%. “We have more blacks in city council; we have a vice mayor that’s black.”
Judging from Hines’ experience, natives who migrated should give the “Athens of the South”—named for Nashville’s classical architecture—another look. —Tamara Holmes
3
DALLAS
Dallas returns to the best cities list at no. 3, up from no. 8 in 2001. Dallas placed third among the top 10 cities in median household income for black families, future job growth, and black high school graduation rate. Survey respondents had mixed reactions about this Sun Belt city. They were pleased with Dallas’ cost of living and the quality of medical care. Although the city’s cost of living index is below the national average, its medical cost index is well above it and there are relatively low numbers of doctors per capita.
Respondents were dissatisfied with the availability of African American enterprises, even though Dallas has a relatively high number of black residents per black business. They also were pessimistic about their employment outlook. Dallas’ black unemployment rate, though somewhat high at 9.5%, is less than the national average.
Dallas is distinct in that it is the only city among the top 10 with a white female mayor. Mayor Laura Miller, now in her second term, holds the office vacated by the city’s first black mayor, Ron Kirk. Miller has solicited Kirk’s aid as part of her strike team, formed to help implement a $2 million budget designated to strengthen economic development, including “going out and aggressively attracting” companies to move to Dallas’ Southern sector, which has large African American and Latino communities.
Based on the findings of a jobs task force study, “We have been able to identify where the jobs are in the next 10 years,” says Miller. Plans are in the works with community colleges to provide job-training programs to help prepare local Texans for future work. Also on the agenda is the creation of a formal internship program between Dallas public schools and local businesses.
Housing is another major initiative. A little less than 50% of