March 2017 | Business View Magazine

100 101 By 1890, Cedar Hill had a population of 500; by 1915, it had three churches, two banks, and a number of other businesses. In the 1980s, the population began to grow dramatically, espe- cially after Joe Pool Lake, built by the Army Corps of Engineers, opened nearby in 1989, giving the population a sustainable source of potable water, and Cedar Hill State Park, on the lake’s eastern shore, opened two years later. The town’s population grew to 32,000 by 2000. Today, Cedar Hill is home to just under 50,000 residents, and, as part of the greater Dallas/Ft.Worth metropolitan area, the city is located in one of the fastest-growing regions in the nation. “If it was an economy, it would be something like 11th Cedar Hill, Texas AT A GLANCE cedar hill, texas WHAT: Cedar Hill, Texas WHERE: In Dallas County, Texas, southwest of the City of Dallas WEBSITE: www.cedarhilltx.com or 12th in the world,” says Cedar Hill’s City Manager, Greg Porter. “We’re around six million people, now, headed to seven and eight over the course of the next 20 years. Somebody moves into this region every four minutes.” But, as the region around it continues to grow, Cedar Hill, itself, intends to be very deliberate in the way it chooses to develop, so that it will continue to be a sustainable place to live, work, and play, decades into the future. “Cedar Hill is distinctive for its location, as well as the environment in which it sits,” Porter explains. “We have a very large amount of pristine property.We have one of the most visited state parks in the state; we have a national Audu- bon Center; and we have about 3,000 acres of con- tiguous, open space preserve.When you put them together, they become one of the largest masses of We’ve placed a high premium on preserving the naturalscape that we have because we’re starting to see more and more interest in people returning to, and being more respectful of, the natural environment. rob franke mayor