Big D is Big Indeed

Last night I dorked out civics style at the first night of “Metromorphosis,” a three-part symposium hosted by the Greater Dallas Planning Council. After a gratis glass of wine and a long-fingered handshake from Mayor Leppert, here are some things I learned about our fair city …

• Earlier demographic studies predicted commuters to Dallas traveling from as far away as central Oklahoma. That hasn’t happened yet, but Ardmore, Okla., markets itself to developers with this motto: “Dallas is coming our way.”
• Dallas is at the top of the second tier of U.S. world cities. Dr. Robert Lang, the evening’s first speaker, said “this is one  serious white-collar economy.”  He referenced this when talking about our city’s tendency to overbuild. We also have about 248.9 million square feet of office space to contain all our white-collar workers.
• Arlington is the nation’s second-largest “boomburb,” having a population that exceeds both St. Louis and Pittsburgh. (Good news for Jerry, I suppose.)
• The urbanizing suburbs are where the action is at. Lang named Plano as a “favored quarter” (sorry Park Cities) and an “urban village,” being well-positioned as not core and not fringe.
• Dallas native Dr. Lyssa Jenkens, the night’s second speaker, said Dallas-Fort Worth comprises 26 percent of Texas’ population; 28 percent of the state’s total jobs; and 32 percent total output. All and all, a very productive area.
• To accommodate the growth of North Texas in the coming years (estimated population of 10 million by 2040), we’ll need about 1.56 million new homes, 14 new regional malls, 40 new hospitals, 640 new schools.
• From 1990-2000, about 70 percent of new residents to the area were domestic, “the young and the restless,” Jenkens called them. From 2000-2005, the numbers flipped, with 70 percent representing the number of foreign migrants.
• Even people who don’t live in Dallas like to abuse the “M” word. Lang’s presentation was titled “The Metroplex: The Original Megapolitan Area.” I couldn’t decide what Wick would think of the term “Megapolitan” given his distaste for the aforementioned forbidden term.
• Did I mention how long Tom Leppert’s fingers are?