Guest blogger Maria Muñoz-Blanco is Director of the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs.

After some 20 years as an avid listener of NPR, the last thing I expected was to hear All Things Considered cover the North Texas cultural scene as if we were some sort of Wrestlemania-for-the-Arts. The recent feature by Wade Goodwyn and John Burnett portrayed the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth as bitter cultural rivals, engaged in a tit-for-tat battle to determine which city reigns as the region’s cultural king of the hill.

Well, here in North Texas, it’s the entire region that reigns supreme (as Alton Brown would say). Our central cultural districts are rather impressive – be it Dallas’ Arts District or Fort Worth’s Cultural District. Fantastic architecture, glorious art collections, amazing performances. Check. Check. Check. Our community-based arts spaces, be it the Bath House Cultural Center in northeast Dallas, TeCo Theater’s Bishop Arts Theater Center in Oak Cliff, or Rose Marine Theatre on Fort Worth’s northside, successfully engage their neighborhoods in year-round cultural activities. And let’s not forget that here in North Texas, culture doesn’t end at the boundaries of our two municipalities – there’s the Irving Arts Center, the Charles W. Eisemann Center in Richardson, the Mesquite Arts Center …

I can’t figure out how Goodwyn and Burnett, perhaps trying to be funny and cute (NPR?), missed the extraordinary big picture of North Texas culture. Here we are, two fairly young cities, roughly 30 miles apart, and in a couple of generations our communities have managed to build a cultural infrastructure that supports arts and cultural events for people of all ages, tastes, pocketbooks…  Suggesting this was done just to have the biggest, the largest, the grandest, the whatever-est, is not a fair account of the seriousness and thoughtfulness with which arts and civic leaders have undertaken the development of our cultural facilities. Or the vision and enthusiasm with which our artists endeavor to create new work and make art happen in our communities. (Yes, Robert Smith, art happens in North Texas all the time!)

And so, from my quaint office in the historic Majestic Theatre, and from the region that is home to the AT&T Performing Arts Center, Bass Hall, Fair Park, the Kimbell Art Museum, some final words about the art scene in Dallas and Fort Worth: we’re too busy making and enjoying too much great art to worry about who has the biggest, the largest, the grandest …