Expert: Dallas To Be A U.S. Model For ‘Urban Walkability’
They made you fork over five bucks to park out in the boonies, mass confusion ensued when many of the luncheon tables went unidentified, and they played a really corny new “webisode” for the “Where’s Your D Spot?” campaign. All in all, though, today’s annual meeting of the Downtown Dallas group was heartening for its bullish portrayal of downtown’s future. And much of it came from keynote speaker and land-use strategist Christopher B. Leinberger, whose assessment can be found after the jump.
Leinberger, a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, is an expert in “Urban Walkability,” the development trend whereby people live, work and play in the same area, without relying on cars. He told the big crowd at Gilley’s that UW is an inevitable and booming market trend, spurred by GenXers and Millennials fleeing the suburbs favored by their parents and grandparents beginning after World War II.
Currently North Texas has just three of these UW areas, Leinberger said, comprising just 5% to 10% of its built space. But it could–and should–have 20 to 30 of them over the next generation. Indeed, Dallas (and Denver) are destined to be models for this UW trend over the next few decades, he said.
Downtown’s core residential population (currently about 5,000) isn’t yet at “critical mass,” but the population is expected to double over the next few years. Uptown, by contrast, is at the “critical mass” point, Leinberger said. What’s needed for downtown and its adjacent areas now, he continued, is for the city to focus on building up residential–especially more affordable–housing, in part by converting B and C office buildings to residences; to avoid pitting downtown interests against the surrounding neighborhoods; and to make the area’s schools a top priority.
If all goes well–and the pesky, ever-present NIMBY types can be overcome–Dallas and Fort Worth between them should score half of those 30 Urban Walkability areas over time, Leinberger concluded.
So, what about that “webisode” that was debuted for the D Spot campaign? Screened after Leinberger’s talk, it followed a couple of trendy young urbanites as they hit downtown Dallas–shopping, noshing, drinking. The overall feel, unfortunately, was wooden and faux-hip. Quipped People Newspapers’ Tierney Kaufman: “It reminded me of those videos about ‘what to do in the city’ you see on a hotel-room TV.” Hope they didn’t pay too much for it.
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And which months will carry the asterisk for “walkability at your own risk”? May, June, July, August, September?
I just moved into the Dallas Power & Light Building (Commerce and Browder) in the middle of down town and I love it, I wouldn’t move back to Plano if my life depended on it. Now if we could just get the restaurants and shops to open up on Sundays we’d be in great shape, downtown on sunday morning is like a ghost town.
Trees are the answer for the hot months.
I’m in Lakewood now, but love the idea of living downtown if it was a bit more dog-friendly. Gotta respect the good puppy dog.
I love living in downtown, no babystrollers, no soccer moms, no uptight neighbors. The club scene is a lot of fun on sundays but fridays/saturdays the places get packed with douchbaggery but I guess that goes everywhere. We need some more places with relaxed atmosphere. I’ve noticed that most of the people who commute into downtown are obese and boring, so it’s kinda a downer to see those types during the day, but such is the masses.
Justin,
You will be crying to get out of downtown within a year. 90% of downtown dwellers move out of the CBD within 18 months. It’s a hellhole. One day you will realize that your experiment of trying to live in a converted office building is a farce.
Bill, you sound like a bitter old man who couldn’t hack it. 90% of people are fat, dumb, and uninteresting. You don’t understand that the burbs are more of a hellhole than downtown could ever be.
Stephen, I’m not sure downtown is big enough for your intellect. Where do you keep that brain of yours? Rent an extra loft?
Yeah, i just had them knock all the walls out of the entire floor and took it over.
Stephen,
You must have not gotten the memo that people who use the term “douchebaggery” are in fact what the word used to mean.
Stephen,
You’re so ChrisChris, you don’t even know how ChrisChris you are…
Perhaps remaining on topic rather than downgrading to name-calling would be more productive and beneficial to the blog?
Huh?
Sweatyfatman,
the, it’s way too hot in dallas to walk argument is old, and unfounded. go to the katy trail, and/or the whiterock trail on the hottest day in august and you’ll notice that both will still be packed. most people don’t walk during the hottest hours of the day (between noon and four), they’re in their offices. but evenings and mornings in dallas (when everyone commutes to work), our nice 350 days out of the year.
also, how would you explain that argument in cities like chicago and new york, where it’s freezing four months out of the year?
lastly, get over the “it’s all an experiment, and you’ll move out in no time”. this is not the case. my wife and i have been downtown for seven years now. if people moved away early, it was due to a lack of retail development. i’ve got neighbors that have been here for years as well.
Matt, he may have been referring to the notoriously poor air quality that plagues Dallas during the summer months, not just the temperatures.
Yeah, Stephen, no babystrollers. That’s the secret to a vibrant urban core. You’re an urban-planning genius.
More clubs yet fewer douchebags — good luck with that. You seem like you’d be a very un-uptight neighbor to have. Unless I were boring, which you’re apparently not prepared to tolerate. Or obese.
Yes, Stephen, we actually do get it — downtown Dallas is the scintillating epicenter of this planet’s intellectual life. By your standards, that is, which you have so candidly revealed.
@Gwyon. understood, but air quality is also poor in NYC and it’s extremely walkable. the fact remains, the katy trail is a catalyst for redevelopment, and it is used heavily throughout the year…even on hot/ozone days. It’s covered in trees, and people don’t typically walk at the hottest point of the day.
@Daniel & Stephen
this angry rhetoric gets us nowhere. I agree with the Brookings Institution’s assessment that this is a generational thing. Gen X’ers, and Millennials are leaving the suburbs for an urban environment, most specifically, to improve their quality of life by surrounding themselves with a UW infrastructure. My wife and I are included in this statistic, while our boomer parents just don’t understand it. The same way your parents didn’t understand the appeal of the 60’s. Because it’s a generational thing, I don’t even think it’s worth arguing. It falls under that “politics, religion, parenting” area, where you just will not sway the other side.
Developers focusing on creating walkable environments is a given that you can see by looking at all of the developments being built around the light rail stations. Richardson, Downtown Garland, and Downtown Plano all have major condo projects being built right now, around their stations. The West Village, Mockingbird Station, etc, are all touting their walkable natures. It’s not just Dallas, it’s every major downtown throughout the US. Look at Fort Worth for more evidence.
I sit in developers meetings regularly, and they are all clamoring to get the katy trail extended to their properties because they realize it’s a major selling point. In the end, that is what will drive this walkable trend.
West Village and Mockingbird Station are not walkable. They are surrounded by seas of parking lots and large streets lacking good crosswalks. Some of you seem to have taken a sip of the marketing kool-aid.
I would dare anyone to walk from Mockingbird Station to the Jason’s Deli across the street.
Likewise with the Katy Trail. 50 feet on either side of the Katy Trail on local side streets most of the sidewalks are broken-up or do not even exist.
I would dare anyone to walk from Uptown to the AAC. Try walking across Harry Hines on a game night or any weeknight for that matter.
Bill -
While I agree that Dallas has a long way to go in regards to urban walkability, I don’t agree with some of what you’re saying about downtown and surrounding areas. More specifically: I have lived downtown for over 2 years, just extended my lease another year, and have no plans to leave downtown at any point in the future – unless it’s for a better downtown.
Secondly, I’ll take that dare you just made regarding Mockingbird Station. Saturday afternoon, I took the train to Mockingbird Station, then walked across the street to Premiere Video. Both myself and my traveling companion are still alive today. That’s not to say that improvements couldn’t be made to that intersection. I believe they could and should – but it’s not an impossibility to get there.
Sorry for the “angry rhetoric.”
I think this study is marred by, for lack of a better phrase, sampling errors. Or something. Legacy Towne Center, while admirable as all-heck, is a just-add-water outdoor suburban mall, and yet qualifies as a certifiable walkable community, according to the study. Sundance Square, on the other hand, while perhaps a trifle on the prefab side (it’s heavily subsidized at all events), has many of the characteristics of an actual urban neighborhood yet doesn’t make the cut. Uptown Dallas gets the nod — and sure, it’s the most theoretically walkable neighborhood in this region, but how many people do you actually see walking? A few, but go to Lower Greenville area on a weekday afternoon and you’ll actually see folks walking to the CVS, etc., yet because it’s bungalow-and-fourplex land it apparently doesn’t count.
I agree with the study’s overall findings, and with Leinberger’s observations as reported by Glenn, but a lot of the specific assertions of the study — as another example, it claims NYC is only the 10th-most-walkable major city in the U.S.A. — are questionable.