A pedestrian sent over the below photo, which he snapped on his way to lunch in the Farmer’s Market at the intersection of Wood and Jackson-Pearl.

He writes: “I’ve been commuting daily on foot across downtown to what is now the East Quarter for about four years and regularly run in and around downtown. The construction has been driving me absolutely crazy and your series has at least given me a sense that I’m not alone.” 

Dallas sacrifices its residents for commuters. At a symposium on March 19, we'll talk about how to flip that.

According to a spokesperson for the company, Amazon has backed out of its plans to locate part of its HQ2 in Long Island City, reigniting some speculation that the company could move part of its offices to Dallas. But it doesn’t appear the company has any intention of revisiting its search.

Criticism over the relocation of one of the world’s largest companies to Long Island City, Queens began as soon as the announcement was made last November. Community activists and some political leaders criticized the massive tax incentives Gov. Andrew Cuomo wished to hand over to the company and feared that the influx of tech employees with lucrative, $150,000/year jobs would disrupt the local economy and displace current residents. Ironically, one of the reasons Amazon is believed to have chosen New York for its HQ2 was the belief that the city was large enough to absorb a company of its size and wealth. But the residents and representatives of Long Island City, which has already been undergoing a massive transformation over the past decade, fought hard against the relocation—and won.

“After much thought and deliberation, we’ve decided not to move forward with our plans to build a headquarters for Amazon in Long Island City, Queens,” Amazon spokeswoman Jodi Seth said in a statement.

Does this mean that Amazon will now look back to Dallas for its HQ2? On the surface, likely not. In that same statement, Seth says that the company does not plan to re-open the HQ2 search at this time. But as Jeremiah reported last week, Mike Rosa, senior vice president at the Dallas Regional Chamber, says the chamber has ” never hung up the phone with Amazon.”

We’re living in an urban boom. To find evidence of it, all you need to do is look around at all the cranes in the sky around downtown Dallas. Over the past decade, urban-style apartments have sprouted up in Uptown and in the outer suburbs alike, many neighborhoods have become more walkable, and areas of the central city that were once undesirable now boast some of the hottest real estate markets in town. Complementing these trends is the fact that Dallas has joined the ranks of cities like San Francisco and New York with regard to how its booming real estate prices have sparked a crisis in housing affordability.

But what are the real values of urban neighborhoods? How do they function economically? What kind of price premium comes with building walkable communities? How do they impact other factors of life, such as economic mobility and social equity?

A few weeks ago, the Center for Real Estate & Urban Analysis at George Washington University, released a report that attempted to answer some of these questions. Following methodology developed for similar reports on Washington, D.C., metro Atlanta, southeast Michigan, metro Boston, and metro New York, the researchers attempted to identify all the urban, walkable neighborhoods in the 16 counties of what they define as North Central Texas. The report drills into economic, housing, employment, and real estate market data to determine how these walkable communities—which the report terms “WalkUPs”—factor into the regional economy.

What the analysis found is remarkable.

An alert FrontBurnervian sends over the photo above this post, from the intersection at Jackson and Ervay streets downtown. This is staring north toward Ervay, and as you can see, both sidewalks are occupied with construction mess. Sometimes we get some trolling in the comments on these Dallas Hates Pedestrians posts, telling us to walk across the street to the other sidewalk. I like to think that we should instead consider requiring scaffolding so we don’t have to do that in the densest part of our city. But here, the point is moot. You walk with the cars, or you find another block.

This is a fine example of the Right of Way issues that the city is struggling with. Simply put, we give it away. Construction takes over pedestrian walkways, forcing people on two feet into unsafe or inconvenient decisions. This reminds me of the construction outside AT&T’s forthcoming Discovery District on Commerce Street. Great, we’re getting a Cool New $100 Million Tech District. You’d think the easiest part of building that would be to do so without forcing me into four lanes of traffic when I cross the street. 

Last Thursday, some policy wonks got together at SMU to discuss how our city—and how other American cities—can dig out of a shortfall of affordable housing. The George W. Bush Institute-hosted event dug into the role smart policy can play in promoting inclusive urban growth, alternating between specifics and broader philosophical questions. The conversation occurred during a number of panel discussions. Here are some takeaways from the first four of the day.

Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative Director Cullum Clark has some ideas on how to improve Dallas’ housing policy. Sitting on the first panel of the morning, Clark laid out the challenges facing our city. No different than most other American cities, Dallas’ middle class increasingly can’t afford thriving neighborhoods and doesn’t want to live in struggling ones. But the city sticks out because of our deep segregation along racial and economic lines (for proof, Clark pointed to the the recent publication of the Opportunity Index). DFW’s economic vibrancy also provides opportunity to get it right here, while Dallas’ exceptional amount of underutilized land presents its own set of opportunities and challenges.

How does this all play into the way Dallas regulates housing? Clark would like to see the city overhaul its zoning code and permitting process, lightening its touch while becoming more targeted. He wants to see greater effort to attract national, high-quality affordable housing builders. He wants to see a focus on preserving and rehabbing existing housing alongside the city’s efforts to close in on its shortage of some 20,000 affordable housing units. On that point, he said during a phone call after the conference, that he was in favor of the city amending its housing policy in the fall when Colorado-based Steele Properties was knocking on the city’s door with a plan to rehab a broken down complex just west of Oak Cliff. The City Council ultimately stayed the policy’s course and shooed Steele away.

As it stands, the city’s housing policy has identified up-and-coming areas for affordable housing investment. But Clark would like to see the housing policy amended so that it adds emphasis on neighborhoods that are geographically close to those areas and other existing pockets of vibrancy. The city’s Market Value Analysis did not peg Fair Park as a reinvestment zone, for instance; in Clark’s telling, that was the most obvious omission. He also pegs Trinity River-adjacent The Bottoms as a potential revival story.

Of course, the city has scarce resources, a point that Clark acknowledges. “If you’re forced to make bets about scarce dollars and pick your locations, in that world, I think you can be a little more forward-thinking in your investment strategy,” he says. “If we were picking stocks, you don’t have to only look at the stocks that have already gone up a lot. Maybe you should look at the stock of companies that are trading at really cheap levels but there’s an underlying business that has bright prospects for the future.”