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Tom Vanderbilt over at Slate has a great piece on the stupidity of city parking codes, which I highly recommend to Dallas, Plano, and any other city trying to revitalize its downtowns. In Dallas,  a city code written in the 1950’s continues to hamper development, encourage sprawl, and keep downtown Dallas blacktopped with ugly parking lots. My last artillery attack on the city’s restrictive and absurdist parking codes was in 2005. I quote myself:

For some reason, decades ago, somebody got it into his head that it was the city’s responsibility to make sure every Tom, Dick, and Harry had a place to park. To make sure there was enough parking, ordinances were enacted that required anybody who did anything to provide off-street parking. The requirements were written with a precision that would make a Soviet planner quiver with delight.

Do you want to build an office building? You must provide one off-street parking space for every 333 square feet. Do you run a catering service? You must have one off-street parking space for every 200 square feet. You’re a lithographer? You need one space for every 300 square feet. You have a call to build a church? You need “one space for each four fixed seats in the sanctuary.”

Vandervilt quotes a Purdue University study found 85,000 unused parking spaces in one county they studied. The antiquated city code is why you see empty spaces where you don’t want to go and no spaces where you do want to go.  Why not turn the matter over to the private sector? If a business doesn’t have enough parking, it goes out of business. If it has too much parking, it has wasted precious capital. Why is the city bureaucracy allocating private dollars?

According to the latest Census Bureau numbers, released today, Dallas-Fort Worth was the fastest-growing metro area in the whole of the USA in the past decade. We added 1.3 million people, up 25 percent over the year 2000. We’re still No. 4 in terms of metro size, with a good bit to go before we could catch Chicago at No. 3 (with about 9.6 million to our 6.5 million).

And please don’t read too much into my joke of a headline. I’ve got no problem with someone who chooses to buy a much bigger house way out in Frisco, even if they work in downtown Dallas and transform themselves into road-raging maniacs because of the 2 to 3 hours they have to spend on the road commuting each day. It’s not my own choice, but I know just how much value some people place on a good-sized yard, better schools for the kids, and a monster-sized family room. To each his own.

1. This shooting in Lancaster sounds like a sad mess, and that the son of Dallas’ brand new police chief was killed on Father’s Day is black irony. Over the next few days, we’ll surely learn more about Chief David Brown’s son and his personal problems — not exactly information the new head of Dallas’ crime fighters wants smeared across the front page.

2. Dallas isn’t prepared to handle a major catastrophic emergency, a group of non-profit agencies concludes. The Mass Care Task Force surveyed the supplies and volunteers available to respond to the aftermath of a major tornado, a terrorist attack, or a Katrina like weather event (or, I suppose, though not mentioned, a levee breach), and determined that North Texas has only 26 percent of what it needs. Comforting.

3. You all know we love Patrick Kennedy’s keen insights into the urban mess called Dallas. He’s smart, funny, and doesn’t mince words or opinions. He also doesn’t own a car, which in this city is novel enough to warrant this profile in the Dallas Morning News. No matter, spread the gospel, brother.

Comes news that Museum Tower will get built after all, thanks to $200 million from the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System. Patrick Kennedy over on Walkable DFW has a look at the development and calls it a “cul-de-sac in the sky.” Will the wealthy buy units in the place? He doesn’t think so — at least not to live in. Why? There’s really nowhere to walk. There’s not enough density and complexity down there. And worst of all: the damn highway. Read the whole thing.

For those of you who weren’t paying attention back in 1998, the battle to build a new arena in downtown Dallas was ferocious. Mayor Ron Kirk threw everything he had into getting it passed. Opponents, including one Laura Miller, fought a heated campaign against it. Sharon Boyd’s website, dallasarena.com, was created to air overheated conspiracy theories about it (I see that she has now moved on to newer topics, but you still find most of the juicier material on Google).  The bond proposal passed by a tiny margin.

City Manager John Ware, who died on May 2, negotiated the deal with Tom Hicks and Ross Perot, Jr. that gave the city a commanding position in the financial structure of the (now-christened) American Airlines Center. Then he quit the job and went to work for Hicks. “Aha!” said the opponents. “See, it was fixed all along!” “Not so!” cried Hicks. “I hired him because he out-negotiated me!”

That’s the back story on today’s DMN report by Rudy Bush that the bonds the city issued to finance its part of the public-private investment will be paid off years before their 2027 due date.

Don’t know about the rest of you, but if I lived in the CBD area, I would be building an ark. Another water situation takes place.

Glub!