Dallas is accustomed to being a darling of the U.S. economy, often leading the nation's big metros in job growth, corporate relocations and business expansions.

Houston occasionally eclipses Dallas-Fort Worth when the energy sector is riding high. In the last 12 months, Houston has created more jobs, but D-FW outperformed in the previous five years, sometimes by huge numbers.

The more consistent rival is Austin, a smaller metro that's been growing at a faster rate than D-FW. It's poaching over 2,400 residents a year from North Texas, more than any other city. More recently, Austin made national headlines for landing big tech projects, including a billion-dollar campus for Apple and the Futures Command headquarters for the Army.

Austin was also rated as the best place to live in the last two rankings by U.S. News & World Report. D-FW was 18th, and Austin's biggest edge was in "desirability." In surveys, people were asked where they would prefer to live, and Austin's score was 37 percent higher.

While many swoon over Austin's nightlife and hipster vibe, Dallas is often portrayed as a staid corporate center, home to about two dozen Fortune 500 companies.

"Dallas is sooooo establishment," said one caption under a photo of the city's skyline.

The commentary was in a Bloomberg column debunking the notion that Silicon Valley was moving to Texas. One reason it’s not: Venture capital still pours into California and the Northeast while declining here.

So how does Dallas push back against perception and reality, and close the gap with Austin?

Start by playing to its strengths. D-FW is the fourth largest metro in the U.S. with 7.4 million residents and 3.8 million workers — more than triple the workforce in the Austin area. The diversified D-FW economy excels in professional and business services and finance. And the many company headquarters, often drawn here by the air service and central location, are an advantage.

"Dallas trades on its size," said Edward Friedman, a senior economist who follows Texas for Moody's Analytics. "The effect of having all these corporate giants is that a big pool of diversified business talent in financial, accounting, law, architecture, IT, has built up — and that attracts the next wave of big companies."

He doesn’t accept that Dallas is less than Austin, just different. D-FW is “bigger, more diverse, more of a corporate center, and more of a mature economy in the long arc of development,” he said.

When Amazon was hunting for a second headquarters, most cities went to lengths to woo the company. But Austin leaders voiced concerns about the impact on traffic and housing and the incentives Amazon expected.

While Austin seemed to tap the brakes, Dallas went all in — as it should have, Friedman said.

“Dallas doesn’t ever say anything’s too big,” he said. “That’s why Dallas is always competing for companies with New York, L.A., Chicago, Atlanta — the biggest of the big.”

In fact, big is part of the brand. In 2012, the city launched a campaign to boost tourism and adopted the tagline: "Big things happen here."

It might not have the cachet and history of “Keep Austin weird,” but it’s a reflection of the region, from the sprawling geographic footprint to the constant growth in jobs and infrastructure.

“We are who we are,” said Bill Sproull of the Richardson Chamber of Commerce, “and it’s darn difficult to start projecting a hip, edgy brand.”

His advice for challenging Austin? Ramp up the attention and investment in the University of Texas at Dallas, and stick with it until the school rivals the scale and impact of UT-Austin.

“Over time, that one thing would have the most dramatic influence on the growth of North Texas, period,” Sproull said.

He pointed out that Stanford was a catalyst in Silicon Valley's growth and UT-Austin was key to Austin’s emergence as a tech capital.

Universities in Dallas-Fort Worth have made significant progress. The number of graduates at UTD and UT-Arlington more than doubled from 2000 to 2016, and engineering and computer science were among the top majors.

In 2016, schools in D-FW awarded over 4,000 degrees in computer engineering, nearly three times more than in Austin, according to a CBRE report on tech talent. The increase in total tech degrees over five years was much higher in D-FW, too. That underscores the region's strength.

"You need the numbers — not just for now but for the future," said Wayne Gearey, a data scientist and professor at UTD. "Labor has to be key, but then it's about the sustainability of that labor."

D-FW ranks near the top in the number of information systems analysts and programmers, he said. That’s one reason it was a finalist for Amazon HQ2 and was in the running until the end. Throw in affordability, he said, and Amazon should have come here — as should more tech companies.

“There’s a lot of strength in D-FW, but we’re not telling the right story,” Gearey said.

In 2017, the Dallas Regional Chamber launched a campaign to help recruit millennials. Billionaire Mark Cuban even made a video pitch to "Say Yes to Dallas." And the campaign website lists many local amenities, including parks, museums, art galleries, and walking and biking trails.

“It’s more than you might think,” the tagline says.

Who can argue with that?