East Lake in Atlanta: vision of hope for urban neighborhoods

New responsibilities with City of Dallas

OFFICE OF THE MAYOR | CITY HALL | 1500 MARILLA ST. | ROOM 5EN | DALLAS, TEXAS 75201

MICHAEL S. RAWLINGS
MAYOR
CITY OF DALLAS  




FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: SCOTT GOLDSTEIN
JULY 17, 2015 214.670.797

Changes announced on mayor’s poverty task force
Former chair assumes GrowSouth post; new leadership named

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings on Friday announced a change in leadership and scope of his poverty task force, which was formed in early 2014.

Regina Montoya, a co-chair of the task force, will take on sole leadership responsibilities of the newly-reconstructed task force, as the panel’s mission shifts to further study the poverty that plagues Dallas and to develop sustainable solutions.

Larry James, the head of Dallas nonprofit CitySquare and the founding chair of the task force, will take on a key role with the mayor’s GrowSouth initiative. Although he will remain a member of the poverty task force, he’ll now be primarily tasked with forming the GrowSouth Collective Impact board.

Under the leadership of James and Montoya, along with former City Council member and Mayor Pro Tem Tennell Atkins, the poverty task force in August 2014 presented several recommendations to the Dallas City Council. Among them: leverage the federal earned income tax credit as an economic engine; emphasize early-childhood education; improve efforts to reduce blight; and support an increase in minimum wage for city employees and contract workers.

From his new post, James, who has been fighting poverty in the city for decades, will now work to connect the City of Dallas’ Neighborhood Plus plan with the Mayor’s GrowSouth initiative in specified areas. The envisioned Collective Impact board will oversee the work of three general managers who will focus on progress in the target neighborhoods of Parkdale/Urbandale, the Lancaster Corridor and the Education Corridor.

"The poverty task force last year presented substantive recommendations that we are continuing to pursue," Rawlings said. "In his new position, Larry James will be able to help implement those and additional policies through the Collective Impact model."

The mayor said his poverty task force will now be focused on better understanding the alarming poverty numbers in our city. It will also be charged with developing long-term solutions for the entire city.

"Portions of our city are booming with historic prosperity and development," Rawlings said. "Yet, the median family income for single-mother homes dropped by 30 percent from 2000 to 2012 and the median income for married couples with children dropped by more than half of that. This is a crisis and we must better understand its root causes if we’re going to address it. Given Regina Montoya’s leadership experience and her extensive knowledge of these critical issues facing Dallas, she will be in an excellent position to lead the work of the newly-reconstructed task force."

Newly elected City Council member Mark Clayton will also join the task force. He replaces Atkins.

***
Regina Montoya is a Harvard-trained attorney who has been nationally recognized as one of the top lawyers in the country. She served as co-chair of Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings' Task Force on Poverty, and she is a member of the Board of Directors of the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Montoya was one of the first Latinas to earn partnership in a major corporate law firm in the United States, and she is a former award-winning television commentator. Montoya is currently working on a book about the importance of incorporating Latinos into the economic, political and social fabric of America, and she is a frequent public speaker on a wide range of issues, including health care, poverty, diversity and children.

Montoya has received numerous awards for her corporate, philanthropic and nonprofit accomplishments. She earned her B.A. from Wellesley College, where she is a Trustee Emerita, and her J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Larry James has provided executive leadership since joining CitySquare in 1994. James is known in the Dallas faith, business and media communities as a social entrepreneur and committed servant to the people of East and South Dallas.

He is a graduate of Harding University (B.A. 1972), Harding University Graduate School of Religion (M.A. 1973), New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (MDiv 1977), Tulane University (M.A.—American History 1986) and Perkins School of Theology at SMU (post-graduate). His first full-length book, The Wealth of the Poor: How Valuing Every Neighbor Restores Hope in Our Cities, was published by Leafwood Publishers in 2013.

Since 1999, James and his wife, Brenda, have made their home in the inner city. James, a United Methodist Minister, serves the church in a dual appointment to CitySquare and Highland Park United Methodist Church.
 

Removing violence. . .delivering a community of hope

Change will come. . .

Radical reinvestment needed in South Dallas Fair Park

Got to say that I'm waiting for the day I can watch a presentation like the one below that envisions radical investment in South Dallas Fair Park.

 Maybe I won't live that long, but there is no reason the quality of the presentation and the vision of the final product for the benefit of people and community couldn't match this one that sets out a major reinvestment plan for the old Valley View Center in, where else, North Dallas.

Why couldn't something like this happen in Fair Park, our city's most neglected treasure?

 

Wisdom from Seuss

This very wise reminder crossed my desk from my good friend and permanent supportive housing expert, Bob Voelker. . .

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.

- Dr. Seuss

Art and Community Design event!

Mr. Obama, help us!

Finally, the national elections are behind us! 

Just possibly we can return to a more civil tone in our conversations and attitudes.  I hope so.

But, with President Obama headed for his second term, I have favors to ask of him and the new Congress. 

My requests relate to my own neighborhood and to the people who live around me, my neighbors.  I'll just put my priorities in a list without much comment.

Here goes:

Sir,

1.  Please work to give us comprehensive immigration reform so that so many of us can live without the fear of deportation.  The vast majority of us work hard every day to make Dallas great.  Please give us all a pathway to legitimacy as residents and members of the labor force.

2.  If comprehensive immigration reform is not possible, then at least give us the DREAM Act to put our children in documented status so they can finish school and go to work legally.

3.  Help us obtain the workforce skills we need to land livable wage jobs.

4.  Make sure our children can attend public schools that work.

5.  Stay the course so that we can make progress in providing universal health care for all of us.

6.  Continue to fund programs like AmeriCorps, and take a look at how the programs of the Corporation of National and Community Service actually pay for themselves in public benefit and educational advancement.  AmeriCorps' ROI is astounding!

7.  Help us rebuild the blighted neighborhoods often referred to as the "ghetto," but known as "home" to many of us.

8.  Find ways to support/reward creative mayors who come up with new, innovative community renewal strategies that actually work!

9.  Incentivize the utilization of creative financial instruments like social impact bonds (SIBs).

10.  Lead the most progressive tax reform effort in our nation's history to promote policies that lift people and create new wealth at the bottom--I know those techniques exist and I know you are smart enough to identify them!

11.  Bring work back to the inner cities of the nation.

12.  Figure out how to make as many of those jobs as possible linked in training programs to the emerging "green economy."

Love this story!

How do we accomplish something like this down Malcolm X Boulevard to Grand Avenue and beyond?  

Hard?  Yes!

But I refuse to use the word "impossible."  

There's got to be a way without a hurricane. . .but we'll need an investment partner like New Orleans found.  

Presence and vision

When we first conceived the vision for the Opportunity Center, I never imagined that we would have such a view into the "soul" of our city.

Dallas 2024???

Already a group of Dallas folks are hard at work on a bid for the 2024 Olympics! If developed properly with determined sensitivity to existing communities, a winning bid could be leveraged to renew areas of Dallas like South Dallas-Fair Park. What do you think? Note: listen for a big Dallas mention toward the end

of the video report below:

 

Fair Park, a future?

Fair Park may be the most under-utilized asset in the city of Dallas. 

The 277 acre community resource combines museums, seasonal attractions (including the best known, State Fair of Texas), history, art and performances.  It is a national historic landmark. Personally, I have very fond memories of walking to the State Fair with my best buddy when we were grade school kids.  His dad allowed us to tag along to his workplace not far from the park and we'd walk the short distance to a destination of great fun and wonder. 

For many reasons, those days are long gone. 

I've been thinking about Fair Park and its possibilities for quite awhile now.  When Jerry Jones decided not to build Cowboys Stadium in the park, I wondered why the city of Dallas wouldn't redevelop it in a manner that would actually produce more economic return to more of its citizens than a football stadium. 

More recently, I read Patrick Kennedy's opinion piece in the June issue of DMagizine ("Big Tex Is a Murderer," page 14) reporting that two zip codes just south of the park are two of the 25 most violent neighborhoods in the U. S. (75210 and 75215 rank 9 and 12 respectively).  Kennedy blames the violence in large part on the fact that the park includes 47 acres of surface parking, noting that "Crime follows disinvestment."

Kennedy wonders what would happen if the parking lots gave way to redevelopment and new investment.  I like the way he is thinking.  However, I don't think he goes far enough. 

The entire park needs comprehensive redevelopment.  One  possibility would be a public-private partnership, possibly backed by an aggressive bond issue and including private investors, land planners and community development organizations.  I know the Dallas 2020 Olympic Committee focused its attention on Fair Park as a potential, wonderful site for an Olympic Village had Dallas landed a bid for the games.  Plans included thousands of apartments that could be leased/sold after the competition concluded. 

Selling off some or all of the park should be considered with built in obligations to develop a truly diverse community in and around the park.  The value of adjacent homeowners' properties  would have to be protected as an upfront part of any deal. 

Can you imagine the vitality of a mixed use, mixed income development at such a scale?  The redevelopment, reinvestment coupled with DART's Green Line at the doorway of the park would draw Fair Park back into the entire community.  Businesses, performing venues, an entertainment corridor, apartments for lease, condos for sale, a healthy connection to the nearby schools--the deal, done properly and adequately capitalized, would set off real transformation of South Dallas.  The return on investment to the city and to the entire region would be phenomenal. 

Wonder what would happen if a group of accomplished folks got together and worked on this?  It's way past time to take some creative action on this largely untapped jewel of our city.

Crazy Growth!

The Dallas Business Journal reported this week that the DFW metro area is the fastest growing in the nation (Lance Murray, "Best of the Blog," page 12; June 1-7, 2012). 

Our area gains a new resident every four minutes and ten seconds! 

Between July 1, 2010 and the July 1, 2011, the area saw 126,037 new residents move in.  This means that 345.3 persons each day move into the DFW area. 

To find a searchable database of population growth in metro areas you might want to check out this site.

So, what does this reality mean to low-income families?  To the extremely poor?  What could it mean to non-profit organizations?

Scenes of progress from CitySquare's new Opportunity Center. . .

CitySquare's new Opportunity Center development continues to progress! 

Located at the southeast corner of Malcolm X and I-30, the new 53,000 sq. ft. multi-purpose campus intends to bring many new opportunities to men and women seeking improved lives. 

Here are scenes of our current progress!  To learn how you can become an investor, contact me at ljames@CitySquare.org.

The power of action and nerve. . .

Often, simply seeing, noticing and then organizing for action changes the world, or at least your own part of it!

You can help TODAY!

CitySquare needs your help before January 1!

You can help TODAY!

Take a look here to find out how you can make a huge difference!

East Dallas bones and underbelly

Living in Old East Dallas provides lots of interesting sights, sounds and situations! 

Since 1999, it's been home. 

There are many old, interesting, turn-of-the last century homes that double as "money pits" to those who purchase them.  At the same time, remodeling these homes has played a part in the renewal of this inner city neighborhood.  Still, the area is populated by low-income working families, many homeless persons and lots of renters who make their homes in under-serviced, often substandard rental properties. 

The community is extremely diverse in every respect--ethnically, racially, economically, educationally, religiously.

Interesting place.

I shot these photos some time ago, and ran across them while cleaning out other old photographs.  Posted here with love, respect and continuing amazement, as well as a healthy sense of mystery and wonder.
 

People or places?

Too many officials in troubled cities wrongly imagine that they can lead their city back to its former glories with some massive construction project--a new stadium or light rail system, a convention center, or a housing project.  With very few exceptions, no public policy can stem the tidal forces of urban change.  We mustn't ignore the needs of the poor people who live in the Rust Belt, but public policy should help poor people, not poor places.

Shiny new real estate may dress up a declining city, but it doesnt' solve its underlying problems.  The hallmark of declining cities is that they have too much housing and infrastructure relative to the strength of their economies.  With all that supply of structure and so little demand, it makes no sense to use public money to build more supply.  The folly of building-centric urban renewal reminds us that cities aren't structures; cities are people.

After Hurricane Katrina, the building boosters wanted to spend hundreds of billions rebuilding New Orleans, but if $200 billion has been given to the people who lived there, each of them would have gotten $400,000 to pay for moving or education or better housing somewhere else.  Even before the flood, New Orleans had done a mediocre job caring for its poor.  Did it really make sense to spend billions on the city's infrastructure, when money was so badly needed to help educate the children of New Orleans?  New Orleans' greatness always came from its people, not from its buildings.  Wouldn't it have made more sense to ask how federal spending could have done the most for the lives of Katrina's victims, even if they moved somewhere else? 

Ultimately, the job of urban government isn't to fund buildings or rail lines that can't possibly cover their costs, but to care for the city's citizens.  A mayor who can better educate a city's children so that they can find opportunity on the other side of the globe is succeeding, even if his city is getting smaller.

Edward Glaeser

Triumph of the City, page 9

____________________________________

I'm enjoying the thought of Edward Glaeser. 

At the same time, I'm wondering how his theories may fit in addressing the continuing challenge of bringing renewal, life, health and opportunity to a "geography" like that of the Southern Sector, a huge section of undeveloped and underdeveloped land here in Dallas, Texas?

For starters, this particular area of our city is not monolithic, or homogenious in any respect, save that of its basically depressed eoconomic vitality.  That said, there are regions of the sector that are severely depressed, as compared to others parts of the area that appear to present more hopeful possibilites. 

Glaeser is right about education.  For sure it presents the greatest, seemingly intractable challenge facing the southern part of our urban area.  Until public education in Dallas is "fixed," nothing of much significance will move forward or change in any substantive, positive manner, especially to the south.  The education problem in Dallas strangles progress, paralyzes the economy and dashes whatever hope might remain or be created along the way to "more of the same." 

As public education goes--in reality and in perception--so goes the housing and retail markets along with jobs and eoncomic vitality.  Our city has seen the flight of middle class families of all complexions from the city to the suburbs on the outside in search of better educational options for their children. 

While building programs, rail lines and infrastructure improvements will not answer the call to renovate public education (shoot, no one's thinking of building anything much to the south of Dallas anyway) some combination of vision, investment, community restructuring and focused attention seem in order. 

What if. . .

. . .Dallas developed a program for educaiton reform equivalent to some of the incentivized economic development vehicles that are in place Downtown and around the community (i. e. enterprise zones, TIFs, etc.)?  Why not block out a target area for special consideration with real attention given to managing entire "feeder patterns" where schools historically under-perform?

. . .Dallas overlaid such target areas with existing economic development tools and a real long-term commitment to public investment?

. . .Dallas courted area and national corporations to relocate to the south to build new, positive, planned developed, "company towns" where new, healthy economies could be built alongside renewing schools.  In exchange for tax abatements, companies would agree to train and employ a % of low-income wage workers alongside middle class wage earners. Such special enclaves would be defined by their commitment to great public schools, no exceptions, no excuses.

. . .the City of Dallas petitioned the state for some measure of involvement/control in managing the public schools in these special, target areas?  Many have argued that the DISD is too large.  By peeling off a portion of the responsibility, the city might contribute to the improvement of the entire system.  I know it's a radical idea, but, in my view, we are in need of a complete overhaul.

. . .principals were held accountable like other CEOs in the community on the basis of clear and meaningful metrics around student improvement, performance and university readiness? 

. . .every new "big project," like those Glaeser mentions, was vetted first for its role in improving the quality of life for these new, planned "excellence in education communities"?  Could we actually plan housing development and variety, community spaces, convention centers, and highway/transportation infrastructure around educational attainment goals and current "low-performing" areas?

. . .Sustainability, quality of life, communication, grassroots democracy and public health measures became first rate community priorities? 

Sorry, but I just wonder.