Recently, we lost the father of rock ‘n’ roll, Chuck Berry. After his death, I became infatuated with researching the music legend I thought I already knew. One of the most interesting facts about Berry is his permanent stamp on interstellar space travel. Let me explain. As you read this blog, Voyager 1 is traveling at 38,000 miles per hour, 11 billion miles away from North Texas. Each Voyager space probe contains an audio/video introduction to Earth and earthlings, which also includes a soundtrack known as the Voyager Golden Record. This includes many human cultural achievements. On this “best of” record…Johnny B. Goode.
Since Johnny B. Goode was pressed (look it up kids) in 1958, imagine where Dallas was at that point in time. Ponder, for a moment, what Dallas looked like. We were the 14th largest city in the country. No Dallas-Fort Worth airport. No major sports franchises at the time. No DART, no trolley (MATA returned in 1989), no Interstate 635. Plus, we were coming out of one of the worst droughts North Texas has ever seen.
As Voyager’s plutonium-238 oxide spheres (I had to look that up) run out of power over the next 10 years, I wonder what Dallas’ “best of” in commercial real estate will look and sound like. Will Texas Central Partners break ground on the bullet train? Will the Cotton Belt Rail Line be completed? Will the Coalition for a New Dallas be successful in bringing down I-345? Will we get our park? Who will come up with a formula for reusing our malls? Will Dallas embrace complete streets? Will Downtown Dallas become an 18-hour city? How will millennials’ renting and driving habits impact North Texas?
It feels like Dallas is standing on the precipice of something great. Perhaps we will have the chance to impact the way we interact within our cities in the same way Berry left his permanent stamp on rock and roll. One day Dallas, one Day.
Andrew Schendle is the director of business development at AECOM Hunt.
