PUBLISHER’S PAGE

■When The Spectator was founded in London in March, 1711, Joseph Addi-son wrote that the purpose of his new magazine was “to contribute to the diversion and improvement of the city in which I live.” City magazines have been adhering to that prescription ever since. Over two hundred years later, in his prospectus for The New Yorker, Harold Ross wrote, “It will be a reflection in word and picture of metropolitan life. It will be human. Its general tenor will be one of gaity, wit and satire, but it will be more than a jester. It will not be what is commonly called radical or highbrow. It will be what is commonly called sophisticated, in that it will assume a reasonable degree of enlightenment on the part of its readers. It will hate bunk.”

Addison’s twin goals, “diversion and improvement,” and Ross’s curt dismissal, “It will hate bunk,” have become the guiding principles for magazines that attempt to explore the delights and misadventures of their respective cities. As our colleague Luke Harmon, publisher of Cleveland Magazine, noted in his December issue, “City magazines are thriving all across the country – there are more of them now that there were even three years ago -and the explanation seems obvious: People want to know more about the place they live in, the people who are their neighbors, the past that has shaped their environment. I think they want something else, too. A monthly magazine, with its more leisurely approach to people and events, is able to put the weekly march of chaotic and imperfectly seen events into perspective.”

That’s as good an explanation as one is likely to find for the city magazine phenomenon which has overtaken the publishing industry in recent years.

In Dallas we are witnessing a city in transition. The role and character of a magazine that chronicles that transition assumes another dimension. Our city used to be run, and run fairly well, by a varying group of 10 to 20 men who, by common consensus, were able to establish an overview of the city’s needs that enabled them to set priorities and settle disputes. Those days have passed. Today the broadened leadership of Dallas consists of 20,000 to 30,000 men and women active in all areas of city life. Their goals are diverse, their vision of the city as a whole is fragmented by their special interests and concerns, and their conflicts are more likely to be displayed in newspaper headlines and settled at the ballot box than in closed door sessions.

If we hope to fulfill the promise that Dallas holds, these decision-makers must be reminded, sometimes harshly, of the standards against which we must measure our achievements. If we hope to move this city forward, we must be taken to task for our failures. We must regain a clear and consistent vision of the city we want to build.

A city is a treasure to be guarded, as well as celebrated. The Wall Street Journal in a front-page article last month singled out Dallas as “an unusual oasis of prosperity” amid the national economic malaise. The Texas Employment Commission forecasts for mid-February that unemployment in Dallas will top out at 3.8%, while the rest of the nation staggers under the burden of soaring joblessness. Our good fortune, as everyone knows, is no accident of history. As C. Jackson Grayson, dean of SMU’s School of Business, points out, “Dallas still has the spirit of adventure and the belief in accomplishment that creates the climate for entrepreneurs to move, to build, and to achieve.” If we lose that spirit and that belief, it will be because we lowered our standards and failed to guard our treasure.

This magazine, for one, does not intend to see that happen. To paraphrase Churchill, we didn’t found this magazine to record the disintegration of our city.

We founded it to celebrate a city built by the hard labor of exceptional men and women and to join wholeheartedly in the continual construction of its success. We founded it to guard the city, too, against the encroachments of mediocrity. We adhere to Addison’s goal of improvement, which requires that we attempt to rid our city of Ross’s demon, bunk.

When you read the gloom-and-doom stories so prevalent in the press during economically troubled times, or when you encounter someone who warns guardedly about this city’s economic prospects, pause to consider a city started from scratch, with nothing to recommend it, which hit the full stride of its growth in the depths of the Great Depression. Still, in the latter part of the 20th Century, Dallas is an uncommon place to be. It is a city just coming into full bloom, blossoming with new experiences of theater, dining, music, art and personal enjoyment. More fine restaurants have opened their doors in the past year than in the preceding decade. More interesting shops, more opportunities for diverse musical entertainment, more earnest attempts at good theater, more enriching and lively approaches to art are producing an excitement which has never been equalled in this city’s experience.

This is no time to circle the wagons. It is a time to strike out with conviction, to marshal ourselves and our city, and to build on the resources this city affords us. If that seems too general a goal, next month we’ll boil it down for you into specific suggestions when we outline “One Hundred Ideas to Make Dallas a Better Place.”

The regular reader will have ascertained by now that this magazine has a strong notion of its likes and dislikes. Those opinions are not lodged like careless prejudices in the recesses of some editor’s mind. As a whole, they represent a consistent viewpoint of the city we love and a jealous desire to protect it. (As you may have noticed, when writing about our present politicians, this jeolousy tends to become a bit strident; we find ourselves in the position of a little brother wondering why his beautiful sister is going out with an ugly date.)

We used to call Dallas the “City of Excellence.” I’ll never forget the pride, as one drove south down Central Expressway toward downtown, of seeing those words flashed on-an-off on the Blue Cross/Blue Shield sign hovering over the highway. Those words were a constant reminder of one’s privilege in being able to live here, especially in a time when lesser cities were undergoing the vexations of suburban growth and urban decay. When those pressures finally hit us, I think we discarded the slogan too quickly. If it no longer describes what Dallas is, at least it describes what Dallas ought to be. As a goal it should not be surrendered graciously.

■We’re delighted this month to welcome David Brudnoy to the ranks ofour regular contributors. Mr. Brudnoy is the film critic of Philadelphiaand Boston Magazines, as well as atelevision host and columnist in Boston. Because he has the opportunityto view films long before distributionin Dallas, we’ve cajoled him into providing us with a short guide to upcoming movies. If your enthusiasmfor film-going has waned as the priceshave increased, we recommend youlook to Brudnoy’s comments eachmonth to select the best moviebargains.