The last 70 years of urban planning were a colossal mistake that we’re all suffering with and are only just beginning to unravel.
Pretty bold claim, eh? Maybe I’m having an Urban Land Institute convention hangover, but think about it: The post WWII suburbanization of America led to a long-term evacuation of major cities. It was in the post-war era that Dallas’ once vibrant downtown began its death spiral into a 9-to-5 office park. It was the post-war era that saw the rise of strip centers, malls, and most recently big box stores that all sucked the life out of towns of all sizes across the nation.
“Drive until you can afford it,” was the jingle to home buyers for many bedroom communities right up to the recession.
Now, 70 years after that horrible experiment began, what are we seeing? Manufactured Main Streets filled with the exact same dense, mixed-use, vibrancy once enjoyed in cities and small towns everywhere. We’re turning back the clock to the way people have lived for millennia. Every human settlement since … forever … has centralized its services and clustered living. No one visits Venice or Machu Picchu to see the suburbs.
Cars and Cool Air
In cities that matured before the car, citizens similarly abandoned inner cities for the burbs. However, in mature cities like Chicago and New York, the neighborhoods remained, taken over by poorer residents … who’re now being displaced again as urban cores become popular again.
Had downtown Dallas not bulldozed its urban core’s residential vibrancy, West Village would likely not exist as a planned development. Instead, Dallas would have expanded naturally, and an organic neighborhood would have been born.
Without the supposed freedom brought by the automobile, Dallas’ urban core would have built the necessary infrastructure and grown in a similar manner as New York and Chicago, which rose to prominence before the gas pedal (don’t get me started on the urban butchery of highways now being revisited by at-grade light rail). It’s almost laughable that Dallas is fighting for a subway when cities like Paris (1900), New York (1904) and even Chicago (1943) and Washington DC (1976) have had them for decades … or in London’s case, for over 150 years.
Put down your Dallas-loving pitchforks … I could say the same thing about any US city in the South. Geographically, the South is HOT in the summer and so before the mass adoption of air conditioning, most southern cities were outposts compared to their northern counterparts (heating has been around since two sticks first got rubbed together).
Unfortunately for the south, both AC and ubiquitous automobile ownership hit at the same post-war moment.
Being a World-Class City
World-class cities bring to mind dense, vibrant spaces … impressive architectural wonders … excellent public transportation … cultural attractions, and typically a rich history. Dallas’ automotive detour cost it decades in lost maturity.
Without the car, the core and inner loop of Dallas would have great public transportation (likely a mature subway system). Housing would have been more dense and more neighborhood feeling.
Dallas would have been largely spared from miles of strip malls. Early “village” shopping areas like Highland Park Village, Preston Center, and Lakewood would have serviced the everyday needs of local residents instead of the outposts of luxury goods and restaurants they are today. North Park, and certainly Galleria, would have not existed. Instead their shops would’ve joined Neiman Marcus downtown like all world-class cities.
Big box stores like Walmart, Best Buy, and their ilk would have had a harder time extinguishing the backbone of family-owned businesses that proliferated in cities and towns before cheap land and easy transportation signed their death.
This isn’t to necessarily say that the suburbs are bad, just that they sucked the life out of Dallas at a critical point in its development. The confluence of auto and AC was just really bad timing for Southern cities. Although without the car, the suburbs would be self-contained towns, not altogether a bad scenario either.
With a dense urban core, we’d have more commercial and residential high-rises. Instead of today’s paltry 14,000 downtown residents, there would likely be a hundred or two hundred thousand residents. Certainly the Farmer’s Market redevelopment area would contain high-rises instead of the piddly townhouses we have today. And it would be that high residential component that would’ve driven the area’s vibrancy. People = vibrancy.
When will Dallas be a real world-class city?
As you might have guessed, I do not think of Dallas as a world-class city …yet. It’s a solid second-tier city. If Dallas had had 50 more years to mature (with AC) before car culture took over, I think we’d be further along. On the upside, today’s realization that neighborhoods and density matter when striving for vibrancy has begun undoing some of the damage done for the past 70 years.
Unfortunately many, used to the status quo, rail against the very increased density that’s required to take Dallas up a notch.
My definition of “world class” is simple. It’s when the world comes. Today, D-FW airports send more Dallas tourists on their way than they welcome.
So world class will be when endless busses of multi-cultural tourists snap selfies in our vibrant, urban core. When spending a week’s vacation in downtown Dallas isn’t four days too many. When the world is willing to spend its free time and disposable income to experience Dallas.
Because when that happens, it will mean all the other criteria have been met.
Remember: High-rises, HOAs and renovation are my beat. But I also appreciate modern and historical architecture balanced against the YIMBY movement. If you’re interested in hosting a Candysdirt.com Staff Meeting event, I’m your guy. In 2016, my writing was recognized with Bronze and Silver awards from the National Association of Real Estate Editors. Have a story to tell or a marriage proposal to make? Shoot me an email [email protected].
