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The Future of Downtown Dallas

>Here's an important note of interest to folks living in Dallas. Why not show up and have a say?

Fair Park possibilities

I read with great interest Scott Parks' story on Saturday in The Dallas Morning News reporting on plans to open an entertainment park in Fair Park from May through August in 2012.

Not too sure that I'll be caught in line to ride the new roller coaster, but I applaud Errol McKoy's vision to do something with this grossly underutilized public asset.

McKoy, president of the State Fair of Texas that fills the park in September and October annually for the famous fair, knows something about theme parks and crowd pleasing. He worked for Six Flags Over Texas for twenty years before joining the State Fair in 1987.

My interest is not specific to McKoy's plan.

I just think something needs to be done to maximize and to take advantage of the fairgrounds for the good of everyone, especially those who live in and around the Fair Park community.

Fair Park is owned by the city of Dallas, as in us!

In the organizational scheme of things at City Hall, it is "a division of the Dallas Park and Recreation Department. Located two miles east of downtown Dallas, Fair Park is home to nine museums and six performance facilities, including the Music Hall, Smirnoff Music Centre, Band Shell and the Cotton Bowl Stadium.



This National Historic Landmark has the largest collection of 1930s Art Deco exposition style architecture in the United States located on 277 acres of beautifully landscaped grounds. Special features include the Leonhardt Lagoon, Texas Vietnam Memorial and Smith Fountain.

Over 749,000 square feet of enclosed space can be leased for conferences, exhibits, markets, festivals and sporting events. Over seven million people visit Fair Park annually for ticketed events with 3.5 million attending the State Fair of Texas for three weeks each fall." [information in italics lifted right off of the Fair Park site!]

In my view the park represents a wasted opportunity to create many new jobs; housing of varied sorts, ranging from permanent supportive studio apartments to high-end, upscale condos and town homes to inner-city Art Deco lofts; an entertainment district with band stages fit for a "Texas Music Festival" or something like what I just witnessed in Milwaukee with their "Summerfest;" mixed use retail development that could feed off of the new DART rail stop at the gates of the park; possibly even funky, new urban office space for businesses of all kinds, for-profit and non-profit; sports fields for youth baseball and soccer academies and leagues; and a corporate academic coaching center where DISD students could come after school for mentoring, help with school work, expsoure to higher science and math, and participation in fine arts under the direction of an army of volunteers from our corporate and professional community. Or, how about a minor league baseball team to add to that mix?

Fair Park is a public treasure.

We must not continue to regard it as just the place where the State Fair shows up for a month each year. It could be so much more than it is today. We need to dust it off, call together neighborhood and other community leaders, add new vision and renew it completely for the good of the entire city.

Check out our latest e-magazine. . .

Take a moment for an inside reality tour of Central Dallas Ministries here.

Hunger, health, housing and hope--all these mission targets focus our work.

Reactions welcome!

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Sunday meditation: hard connections

Is there just not enough to go around? Have we reached a point in our national experience that when one group does badly, other groups find that their fate in life takes a definite upturn?

It's not a new question or reality if you look to the internatioanl scene. The fact is American abundance and the loss thereof has contributed to the pain and relief of people from other nations, especially in the so called Third World.

But here at home?

Sure. And, again, not a new phenomenon, just the latest expression of same.

Read for yourself how the current housing crisis among middle class homeowners is affecting our homeless neighbors in a Newsweek story by Matthew Philips, Hope Amid a Downturn.

Tell me what you think.

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Dorothy Day's Diary--June 29, 1938

Commitment to changing the systemic factors that keep people down and out is a necessity, if the goal is sustainable, authentic progress. Dorothy Day's diary reflects her determination to work for change. These words were entered in summer 1938. The struggle continues.

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We had a meeting of the friends of the CW [Catholic Worker] and there were an equal number of colored and white. The colored confessed to giving up when they discovered the new housing appropriations were not going to reach them. A great need for people to unite and work for their poorer fellows. They can be meek for themselves but not for others. St. Thomas says a man cannot lead a good life without a certain amount of goods. It is impossible for people to keep straight, living under such conditions. Whole families crowded in one room, people living in shacks in the open, vice rampant, it is a miracle if children remain uncontaminated. I would suggest the tenants go on a sit-down strike against paying rent, and so call attention to their situation. The first small step is to get water for them.

Housing, interracial justice and cooperation are the three things the friends of the CW in Harrisburg [PA] are interested in. And they have already done much along these lines. Along with this work, they are also talking about a farm to settle about five young men, two married with families, the others working to make marriage possible. With an auxiliary group to help them, with those who are working helping those who are not working, much can be done. Mutual aid, without help or interference from the government. Working along both lines is necessary.

[from The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day, pages 27-28]

Tent Cities

During my recent visit to Seattle, Washington, I had the opportunity to tour one of the “tent cities” that works with local churches to provide temporary shelter for the city’s homeless population. I say “temporary” because the tent city campgrounds move every three months to a new church property where the community of tents is reassembled.

The campground I visited was staged in the parking lot of a local Catholic Church. The migrant community had been there for almost three months and were beginning to think about the moving process.

In talking to the residents, I learned several of the fundamentals of why these living arrangements were so attractive to the homeless, even in a city like Seattle that remains cold at night well into the summer months.

The campgrounds are managed by the residents. The homeless who live in the tents establish and enforce the rules of the community. The living arrangement is all about being a helpful and supportive community of peers.

No one is allowed to loiter within 1,000 feet of the perimeter of the encampment, unless at a bus stop or walking through the surrounding neighborhood to a job or an interview.

People can basically come and go as they please like in any other normal housing situation. There are no enforced exit hours early in the morning, nor are there curfews at night.

People have a place to stow their belongings during the day without fear that someone will steal them or throw them in the trash. There are plenty of bathroom facilities.

The level of independent living possible here allows people to gain the “traction” needed to land jobs and save some money for a more permanent housing arrangement.

No one here prefers remaining outside--a common myth held by the non-homeless. What they do seek is the freedom and independence of the environment. No one here wants to be hemmed in by the rules of others who don’t really understand what they are facing. No one wants to be forced to receive religious instruction.

Respect abounds in this setting. Everyone is taken seriously, everyone pitches in and everyone is valued.

I was amazed at the entire process.

I was impressed with the church that extended simple hospitality to those who pitched their tents outside. I found hope in the place as I visited with the residents.

Returning to Dallas, I wondered if such a plan would work here. I have my doubts, and that is a shame. I can think of a dozen churches right off the top of my head that would be great candidates for this sort of shared living arrangement. It seems clear to me that the churches involved here have found a way to “preach the gospel” without using a word!

Frankly, I find that refreshing.

Extreme Cold. . .Brrrrr!

Five of us made the trip to New York City last night. Today we tour properties developed by Common Ground, one of the most innovative and successful community development corporations in the country.

It was the story of Common Ground's Times Square Hotel development that influenced us to purchase a building for re-development in Downtown Dallas. The "60 Minutes" report on the project here in Manhattan is still etched in my mind.

This morning the temperature stands just above 0! The windchill makes it feel somewhere between 0 and 15 below! Cold for a Texas boy.

Looking forward to what we can discover together for the sake of our city and folks who deserve a quality space for living.