The Urbanization of The Suburbs

[Michelle Garcia Zarate]

The Center for Real Estate and Urban Analysis at George Washington University School of Business and SmartGrowth America launched a report stating that Dallas lacks trails for transients to transit. The city occupied a ranking of 25th out of 30 big cities in an article called Foot Traffic Ahead: Ranking Walkable Urbanism in America’s Largest Metros. According to this report, Dallas has a big potential undeveloped caused, in part, to the slow expansion of DART's light-rail system.

Land-use strategist Chris Leinberger conveyed that there is a trend among the North Texas region, where nine vitals beginnings of walkable urban places were identified: downtown, Uptown, Deep Ellum, downtown Plano, and downtown Fort Worth. To develop places like these, 750,000 people are required to support them. This is a very high digit if compared to Boston, where they have one of the places like these for every 108,000 people.

Dallas continues to follow the suburban model of the late 20th century that is primarily led by the burning of fossil fuel. However, the city needs to change strategies in order to see a real improvement and combine the last mentioned model with a walkable urban future. As an example of this model to follow, Leinberger exalts the labor carried out in the past twenty years by one of the top five walkable cities: Washington, D.C; conveying that the expansion of Metrorail had something (or a lot) to do with its development as it allowed residents to give up their drives as they moved out from the city center.

Northwest, east, and South Dallas should be as walkable as Downtown Dallas. This is an action that would be reached through “the urbanization of the suburbs” led by the expansion of DART’s railroads, conveys Leinberger. Only seven percent of square footage that is actually walkable is in the suburbs of Dallas, while in Washington D.C it is 50-50. It is important to build an economic development plan to incorporate high-density urban areas in the suburbs; this can be accomplished through the expansion of the light rail system in order to move masses from the intense center to outside the city. As explained in my first article, this expansion growth will open up many market segments that will impact the economy in a favorable way.

The City government must hear their people and work for them. This means, it is necessary to design for them, not cars; and provide enough means for the city to have a proper mobility, quality of life, and walkable neighborhoods. It important to remark that every forty years we are allowed to rebuild or tear down a major infrastructure development. However, rebuilding could be two times more expensive than building, due to the fact that it is imperative to re-plan traffic flow. Dallas cannot continue to live under the suburban model of the late 20th century, it is necessary to urbanize the suburbs and its people is calling for it.

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/dallas-city-hall/2014/06/17/study-d...

[Joshua Robert Powers]

I really like your post. Back in Northern Ireland, all of our cities are designed to be walkable. With that said our whole country has a smaller population than the DFW area. It really does create a community and allows for better health of the population. 

[Asher Paul Ang]

I think the suburban model will continue to be a vital part of Dallas' city growth plan. I do not think the suburban model is flawed, and I think big highways and cars is essential to the economic growth of the city. Public transportation is simply not in the priorities of the city, and it does not have to be. I agree with you that the traffic flow would eventually be an issue, but I think Dallas has done a good job in its highway systems although I think more could be done to maintain sustainability. I think the reason why it is difficult to develop a public transportation system in Dallas is because Dallas is extremely spread out, and it simply is not practical.

[Nathan Lewis]

One of the biggest problems with DART is that it is not profitable. It depends on taxpayer subsidies already. Expanding its size would probably make it less profitable because its rate of use is even lower in the suburbs. Texans are too accustomed to using personal cars. I do not see this changing any time soon. I see your point that the area could be more walkable. However, I do not see public transportation taking off in the metroplex in any kind of profitable way.