When this whole global pandemic thing kicked off some months ago, reports that the virus spread quickly through crowded, dense cities appeared to raise some sharp questions about the future of urban places. In cities like New York, subways were shuttered and residents who could fled the city. Were cities—and dense cities which rely on public transit, in particular—especially vulnerable to global pandemics? An article in Scientific American suggests that initial fears of COVID-19’s spread on public transit, at least, were perhaps a tad overblown.

The article addresses an Atlantic opinion piece written by Janette Sadik-Khan, the former commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation, and Seth Solomonow, the co-author of Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution. The pair argue that public transit can’t be linked to as many major outbreaks as bars and live music venues. Furthermore, avoiding public transit increases car use, which can create pollution, which can make people more vulnerable to respiratory diseases.

My initial reaction to this argument was skepticism. The premise doesn’t seem to make sense.

Remember when someone suggested fairly early on during the COVID-19 lockdown that the city shut down Seventh St. in Oak Cliff to allow residents more space to run and stroll outside, since the Katy Trail and parks were clogged? That didn’t work out too well. Some residents resented the idea that someone decided to turn their block into a COVID recreation destination. Facebook erupted into a neighborhood dog fight, and the deal died in a single weekend.

Now, the city of Dallas and a few urbanism-minded partners are back at it again with a similar, though much improved, idea. If you would like to shut down your street to make it safer and to give you and your neighbors a some  additional public recreation space, all you have to do is ask. The city of Dallas has partnered with Better Block, Bike DFW, Amanda Popken Development, and a Coalition for a New Dallas (yes, that coalition) to launch the Dallas Slow Streets pilot program. Modeled after similar programs in Austin and Kansas City, Slow Streets invites neighbors to apply for a 30-day permit that will allow your street to be closed to all but emergency and local traffic. Think of it as a month-long block party.

There’s good news and bad news in the Trust for Public Land’s annual ParkScore rankings. First the bad: Dallas slipped two spots in its national ranking among city park systems (from 52 to 54), mostly due to its comparatively weak park amenities and limited dog parks and restrooms. But Dallas’ park access score has “improved dramatically,” according to the report, thanks to new trails and agreements with schools to open grounds for public use. The city’s median park size of 7.7 acres also exceeds the national median of 5.2 acres. These gains can be attributed to the city’s embrace of the Trust for Public Land’s “10-minute Walk to a Park” campaign.

But the real story in this year’s report is—you guessed it—the COVID-19 pandemic. Analysts with The Trust for Public Land are concerned that the economic crisis caused by the pandemic will strip municipal budgets and hamper progress to increase park access. The report points out that the city of Dallas furloughed 235 Parks and Rec employees last week.

“While few cities have announced budget plans for 2021 and beyond, park advocates are gearing up for a fight,” said Bill Lee, senior vice president for policy, advocacy and government relations at The Trust for Public Land. “We encourage the federal government to provide relief to struggling park systems in the next recovery bill. We need our parks, and we will not allow park systems to be collateral damage from the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The proposal to install a private development of soccer fields under Interstate 345 is scheduled to return to City Hall on Monday. We haven’t heard anything about this project for more than a year, after a council committee sent it back to the drawing board following concerns that it was unsafe to exercise under a highway. Some members also wondered whether the plan was the best use for the land, as the Deep Ellum Foundation had been trying for nearly a decade to turn it into special event and staff parking.

Those in opposition also note the optics of the deal. The Texas Department of Transportation is currently researching the potential for removing or burying the elevated, 1.3-mile I-345, which connects Interstate 45 to Central Expressway and occupies a whole lot of land between downtown and Deep Ellum. Tearing it out and replacing with a boulevard would free up hundreds of acres that could be used to build much-needed affordable housing, create physical spaces for jobs near the city’s core, and improve the pedestrian connectivity between two of Dallas’ most important neighborhoods. All of this development would generate millions in tax revenue for the city.

The man driving the deal to build the soccer fields is Roddrick West, son of U.S. Senate hopeful and longtime state Sen. Royce West. Royce has been perhaps the loudest and most powerful voice against removing I-345, causing political groups to question his son’s intent and confront his father at public hearings. (Disclosure: one of those groups is the Coalition for a New Dallas, the Super PAC co-founded by D Magazine founder Wick Allison that operates independently of D Magazine.)

Roddrick maintains that his dad has nothing to do with this project and that the lease agreement would include a clause that requires a two-year exit should the city and the state decide to do anything to the freeway. TxDOT confirms that fact, adding that the termination clause “can be exercised at TxDOT’s sole discretion.” The agency will not detail the lease’s financial information until the deal is final.

“Sometimes development hits a highway and doesn’t want to jump over because of the psychological effects on pedestrians,” Roddrick said. “With programming this site in particular, bringing life and activity to this site, it will drastically improve the pedestrian experience for folks crossing under 345 to go between Deep Ellum and the Farmers Market.”

For the project’s critics, the math doesn’t add up. While TxDOT owns the land under the freeway, the city controls it. Council will have to agree to cede control of the land for the soccer balls to roll.

Parking requirements dictate much of what gets built and what doesn’t in this city. Residential, commercial, it doesn’t matter. City code dictates the amount of parking you need or don’t need in order for you to put up that fourplex or open that restaurant. City code hasn’t exactly warmed to the idea of urban neighborhoods as well as it should have: every 100 square feet of a restaurant requires a parking space, just as every single hotel room does.

Going back to his days on Dallas City Plan Commission, North Oak Cliff Councilman Chad West has been a proponent to rethinking the code to better reflect the conditions in the neighborhoods that make Dallas the city that it is.

And because you have absolutely nowhere to go other than your allotted walks, you’ll be able to tune into this stream with West and a few others that talk about this very topic. The Coalition for a New Dallas, the super PAC that D founder Wick Allison started (and is independent of operations at D, mind you), is sponsoring a Zoom stream with West, Travis Liska of the North Central Texas Council of Governments, and Mintwood Real Estate’s Katy Slade. It happens Monday, April 27, at 5:30 p.m. It’s not like you have anything else to do.

When we come out of this pandemic, we’ll be coming to a city that will be greatly changed. Before the pandemic, the requirements were already making some projects pencil out and others not. The digital symposium promises to discuss “innovative parking proposals” that could change how our city does business.

When we can all return to our lives, it’ll be particularly important for the city to establish smart policies that encourage sustainable growth. And that, in many ways, starts with parking.

“Many cities in DFW, including Dallas, have antiquated parking codes that have not been updated in decades to reflect changes in how people move around,” West said. “The codes often stand in the way of thoughtful, neighborhood-centric growth. It’s time for us to change that.”

Head here to RSVP.

One of the most encouraging subplots of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has been a story of adaptation.

Groups, organizations, and neighbors have pooled resources, schemed plans, and unrolled do-it-yourself solutions to meet some of the most pressing needs of the medical crisis. These include alcohol distillers who are producing hand sanitizers, jeans manufacturers who are producing protective gear, and restaurants who are reinventing their business models to stay open and keep their workers employed.

Better Block, the urbanist activist/design consulting organization founded by Jason Roberts, responded quickly. First, they repurposed some makeshift market stalls to transform Oddfellows in Oak Cliff into a pop-up outdoor marketplace, selling the restaurant’s freezer and pantry stock to neighbors in need of kitchen staples. Then Better Block turned their production facility into an open-source protective mask factory, and they have been shipping the face shields to medical providers around the country.

A couple of weeks ago another idea emerged from the Better Block brain trust: shutting down city streets to create new pedestrian plazas to help relieve congested parks and allow for more social distancing-compliant outdoor fun.

It sounded like a good idea before it all fell apart amid a bitter neighborhood squabble online.