When developer ZOM Living broke ground early this month on the Atelier, a $150 million residential project in the Arts District, a press release promised that the finished 41-story building will include 364 “luxury”—code for “expensive”—units, artists lofts, gallery and retail space and “lively pedestrian streetscape.” Here’s that lively pedestrian streetscape today:

The Atelier occupies some prime real estate in between the Nasher and the Meyerson, a short jaunt from Klyde Warren Park and from this other sidewalk-devouring construction site in the Arts District. When it’s finished in 2020, that lively pedestrian streetscape should be lovely. In the meanwhile, people are trying to walk here. These are the people you need to make that streetscape lively, the people who are frustrated and pushed back into their cars after they find that walking around the city is too often like navigating a dangerous, ugly maze full of booby-traps and “Sidewalk Closed Use Other Side” signs placed nowhere near a crosswalk.

Downtown development is welcome, and obviously there would be some safety issues in letting pedestrians stroll through active construction sites. But forcing pedestrians to walk in the street (as many will do, rather than backtrack or go out of their way) is also a safety issue. Making it a hassle to walk anywhere is a safety issue. So require contractors to build scaffolding or “sidewalk sheds.” Close a lane to car traffic and create a buffered pedestrian walkway while construction is ongoing. These aren’t crazy ideas. Other cities do this. Account for the people living and walking here today, not just the people who in two years may be moving into expensive apartments above a lively pedestrian streetscape that, for now, we can only dream about.

Send your photo evidence of Dallas hating pedestrians to [email protected]

Hello, my name is Zac Crain and I’m D Magazine‘s fiction editor as well as its best highway driver and resident pedestrian. You may remember me from such collections as this one and, I don’t know, I guess most of the backpage columns that have appeared over the past decade or so. (Interviews with inanimate objects I suppose counts as fiction.)

I’m joking. I mean, I am the best highway driver the earth has ever seen on the open road, but I’m not really a fiction editor, except sort of nominally. I put together last year’s microfiction and this one’s, but I didn’t really do much. I gave the authors the assignment — a story between 200 and 1,000 words, set in Dallas somehow — and that was pretty much it. So I end up looking smart with the least amount of effort required, which is my favorite thing. Usually I just have to stand next to Tim for that.

Some writers returned from last year (Julia Heaberlin, Harry Hunsicker, Brooks Egerton, Merritt Tierce, Kathleen Kent), and they are joined by some names you’ll likely recognize (Ben Fountain, Will Clarke) and others that you should get familiar with (Samantha Mabry, Shay Youngblood). I’m excited for everyone to read these stories.

ALSO, tonight, most of the authors (and myself) will be at the Wild Detectives in Oak Cliff. There will be readings and it maybe will be a little hot, but we’ll all be together so it’s OK. It starts at 7:30. See you there.

Albert Black Files Mayoral Candidacy. The Dallas businessman launched his campaign yesterday to be the next mayor of Dallas after Mike Rawlings.

1,000 Mentors Wanted for Carter High. Last year, 600 men responded to a call for 50 volunteers to mentor boys at Earl Dade Middle School. This year, the organizer wants to get 1,000 mentors for David W. Carter High School. The sign-up is tonight at the Sprague Athletic Complex.

Dog Attack Requires Man’s Arm To Be Amputated. Ronald Bell was attacked by a dog last month in southern Dallas and recently had to have his arm amputated as a result. After his attack, the City Council voted to make stricter laws pertaining to dangerous dogs.

Dallas Resident Wins Scratch-Off Lottery. The anonymous winner, who won $1 million, bought the $20 ticket at a convenience store in Garland.

Should we have called this series “Dallas: Where the Sidewalk Ends” before we got to its fourth installment? Probably. Too late, though. Is it still possible to surmise that Dallas is a city that hates pedestrians, based in part on how many sidewalks are blocked off by construction for long periods of time? Definitely.

Eventually, the Hall Arts Residences in the Arts District will be a 25-story tower full of condos you can’t afford. For now, it’s a construction site engulfing a sidewalk you can’t walk on.

Of course, no one really walks around the Arts District except rebellious teen skateboarders, but surely this is an inconvenience for the valet drivers running to get the cars of patrons at Flora Street Cafe.

Dallas businessman Albert Black is transitioning out of the leading role at his 36-year-old company On Target Supplies & Logistics with the hopes of landing an even bigger job: Dallas mayor.

On Wednesday, Black filed for the May 2019 mayoral election, becoming the first candidate to enter the race. To kick off his campaign, he’s planning a community event at 10 a.m. Saturday at at the Frazier Community Center in Frazier Courts, the neighborhood southeast of Fair Park where Black grew up. Black hopes his campaign will resonate with a broad group of constituents.

“I believe we can produce an economy that no matter what neighborhood you’re from, no matter your background or immigration status, we can … include you,” Black said. “It’s going to take a lot of work. That’s the work of our campaign.”

Black, born and raised in Dallas, has served as president and CEO of On Target since 1982, when he and his wife founded the company. On Target has since become one of the largest minority-owned firms in Dallas, employing 200 people. He also serves as chairman of the Charles Sammons Cancer Center and as the chairman of the Dallas Housing Authority.

He served as the first African-American chairman of the Dallas Regional Chamber from 2000 to 2002. There, he worked with former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk to develop international joint trade missions and build business partnerships for the city. He also previously served as the chairman of the board for Baylor Health Care System, where he once worked as a cook in the kitchen of one of its hospitals. At Baylor, he helped oversee the merger with Scott and White and established The Baylor Diabetes Health & Wellness Institute, the first health center in Frazier Courts.

Black sat down with me yesterday to lay out his priorities for the city. Here are the issues he plans to address during his campaign:

I have not been bitten by a Lone Star tick. I have not been infiltrated by Alpha-Gal antibodies that might otherwise punish me for enjoying the pleasures of the flesh.

No, I have been spared. Spared to consume more red meat in greater quantities and varieties over the past couple of months than ever before.

For our July feature on Dallas’ best meat markets, Eve Hill-Agnus and I visited 11 shops from McKinney to Oak Cliff. And then, because I like a self-imposed challenge, I spent two days driving around to 10 of the shops and hosted a dream meat cookout for some of my coworkers in my backyard.

All of this has led to an unexpected side effect: people want to talk to me about meat. A lot.

At parties. On the tennis court. Beside the pool. They want to know about sausages, and elk steaks, and why I’ll buy a chuck steak over a Wagyu steak for the grill, and whether you can really taste the difference between a 45-day and 25-day aged rib-eye, and what the heck I put on those pork chops to make them taste so good.

We are sitting on a treasure trove of protein, people. So please, ask away. If I don’t know the answer, I’ll just have to do a little more research.