On one side of Flora Street is the Bill and Margot Winspear Opera House, an airy space designed by Norman Foster. Across the street is the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, a silver cube designed by Joshua Prince-Ramos and Rem Koolhaas. “Aesthetically, it’s stoic, even off-putting,” said the theatre manager, leading a tour. The beauty of the space, he explained, is its flexibility: the walls retract, the stage moves and the tiers of seats can be hoisted.

Dallas is famous for bold statements—from big hair to Big Tex, the inflatable cowboy who presides over the state fair—and the Dallas Arts District, where the theatre and the opera house have both just opened, is of a piece. It spans 68 acres or 19 city blocks, and also includes several museums, a concert hall, a dance theatre and a performing-arts high school once attended by Erykah Badu and Norah Jones. To city leaders, all this epitomises the confidence and audacity of the place.

How can Dallas afford all this, and in straitened times to boot? The answer is that most of the dollars did not come from the city. The performing-arts part of the district cost $354m, and only $18m of that came from public funds. Some 130 people gave gifts larger than $1m. The Winspears gave $42m to the opera house.

The city hopes that the arts will spur economic development. Dallas does well enough with business, but there have been setbacks. One came in 2001, when Boeing, shifting out of Seattle, chose to relocate to Chicago rather than Dallas because the quality of life was better. Now Dallas is confident it can compete. The Dallas Symphony Orchestra recently said it would keep its conductor Jaap van Zweden until 2016, even though he visited Chicago last year.

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