A real estate consultant named Paul Carden was invited to Fair Park in late April to share an idea that is abhorrent to most Texans. The idea was that sometimes traffic jams can be a good thing.
He spoke on stage at the Centennial Building during the EarthX conference over Earth Day weekend, not the kind of environment you might expect to champion idling vehicles. But congestion is why some areas are able to attract businesses while others are not, he said.
Wearing jeans and a blazer, Mr. Carden, vice president of the real estate company Venture Commercial, spoke with the enthusiasm of a teacher who had been pleading with the administration for years to teach the elective. His stage partner for the afternoon was Caleb Roberts, an urban planner with the firm Gap Strategies, who immediately delivered a smiling and complementary sermon after each point. Roberts explains how some destinations were destroyed before highways shifted congestion and investment to newer parts of the city, leaving behind older parts and creating other destinations decades and miles away. He cited a slide showing how to eliminate. The screen displayed a photo of his vibrant 1950s-era neighborhood just south of downtown Dallas, later gouged out by Interstate 35 and his 45. He then called up a photo of his North Dallas from the same period, showing vacant lots and the businesses that filled them. .
Roberts was not from Dallas, and the two had never worked together. But a mutual friend nominated them to present EarthX because their message was a perfect fit. Highways serve automobiles, not necessarily neighborhoods or the people who live there.
Their meeting took place about four weeks before the Dallas City Council takes a final vote on the future of Interstate 345. Interstate 345 is a 1.4-mile elevated highway spur between Downtown and Deep Ellum that connects Woodall Rogers, the Central Expressway, Interstate 30, and Interstate 45. While some advocate tearing down aging freeways and rebuilding city streets, working-class people in south Dallas say they need Interstate 345 to get to work. Some people.
Carden and Roberts asked the room to look at South Dallas differently. The western boundary is the Trinity River. The Great Trinity Forest is the southern boundary and Interstate 30 is the northern boundary. In geographic context, South Dallas appears like a peninsula that impedes traffic flow and encourages associated development. But instead, Interstate 45 and Interstate 345 bypassed the area, reducing activity on the peninsula.
“The more people that travel there, the more business you can do. That's an opportunity. That's wealth creation,” Carden said. “But 345 is separating the traffic that patronizes those businesses from south Dallas and spilling it into north Dallas.”
Roberts witnessed this same export of vitality in his hometown of Milwaukee. The Wisconsin Department of Transportation announced the expansion of Interstate 43 through the city center, decades after freeway construction destroyed more than 8,000 homes in the majority-black Bronzeville neighborhood. was promoting. Mr. Roberts helped organize efforts to stop the spread.
Years later, after moving to Dallas, he noticed similarities with Interstate 345. Interstate 345 is another urban highway that has eaten up land and sent people and commerce elsewhere. (He now lives just a few blocks from the freeway.)
South Dallas is located 2 miles east of downtown, and Fair Park is near the center. Racist policies in the 1950s led to white flight and brutal bombing, leaving the black community in the majority. In the 1960s, Interstate 30 bisected the city, physically separating it from East Dallas. According to the census, most of that land belongs to two zip codes: 75210 and 75215. Approximately 21 percent of 75215 residents commute at least 35 minutes to work. In 75210, that percentage jumps to 41%. The U.S. Department of Agriculture classifies five of the eight census tracts within these boundaries as “low-income and low-access” areas, meaning there are many people living in poverty who do not have easy access to healthy food. considered to be a region.
Meanwhile, the highway system just to its west diverts 178,000 people away from South Dallas every day, according to Texas Department of Transportation transportation statistics. “That traffic is literally money flowing from South Dallas through the overpass and directly into the wallets and opportunities of people who live in North Dallas,” Carden said.
Compare this to Mockingbird Lane and Inwood Road, about 9 miles to the north. Carden told the audience that in 2019, before the pandemic changed traffic patterns, more than 43,000 cars passed along Mockingbird every day. 55,000 people gathered in Inwood. The busiest road in South Dallas is Robert B. Cullum Boulevard, where 25,000 cars pass by McDonald's, Walgreens and Fiesta on the edge of Fair Park. It's basically the only national retailer in the area. It's also one of the few major roads south of Dallas that isn't affected by freeways.
Cesar Chavez Boulevard runs into downtown, but only sees 10,000 vehicle traffic per day. Harwood Street also connects directly to downtown, but only allows about 2,500 cars per day. The Botham Jean runs along the river and into the Cedars, carrying 11,000 cars per day.
Roberts and Carden's point is not that traffic alone will change South Dallas or that the area needs more national chains. Rather, all these cars are a sign of what conditions the region faces and how easy it is for retailers to move a few miles north to what Carden calls “the path of least resistance.” It shows. Gathering can be difficult in South Dallas because the lots are small and owned by a variety of people and businesses. Additionally, there aren't enough people to compete, both on foot and in cars. So all your money just goes a few miles up the highway.
In the weeks before Mr. Carden and Mr. Roberts took the stage, crowding had become the buzzword at Dallas City Hall. TxDOT needed the council's support for its plan to tear down Interstate 345 and rebuild it in a ditch. For more than a decade, organizers have urged states to consider removing freeways and replacing them with boulevards and reconfigured street networks, which would free up land for economic development and housing. He claimed that it would be done. Their belief is that Dallas can grow with density and maintain affordable housing, and that adding more people to the city center will create neighborhoods that don't require long commutes. .
Today, that seems unlikely. The state says traffic statistics show that if major thoroughfares were replaced by expressways, congestion would increase by 40 to 50 percent, with cars and trucks cramming onto four-lane city streets. It was argued like a movie. With few lawmakers opposed, TxDOT approved building a 10-lane highway through the canyon.
Meanwhile, South Dallas still faces the same economic and structural challenges after decades of segregation and disinvestment. And there are still huge opportunities for itself.
Freeway builders see these long commutes from south Dallas as evidence that residents there need freeways to get to work. Carden sees things differently. Thanks to the freeway, South Dallas has a lot of underutilized land, making it possible to add new homes, jobs, and retail without “touching the single-family knife,” the area's overwhelmingly dominant housing style. You can reshape it to accommodate it.
But things are changing in South Dallas. TxDOT recently removed a highway that ran through the community. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard flew over the former US 175 SM Wright Highway. The state plans to remove the road and restore the right-of-way to level ground, which will eventually become a north-south thoroughfare. (TxDOT was comfortable with adjacent Interstate 45 absorbing traffic; I-345 does not have a similar relief artery.) SM Light also cut South Dallas' western boundary in two, just as it did further north. It is hoped that the thoroughfare will begin to reconnect the area.
The Fair Park parking lot has been transformed into a community park with unfenced neighborhood access. Of course, that leads to what, at least on the surface, appears to be a standard real estate strategy. A Dallas company recently seized 17 buildings on Exposition Avenue near the main entrance to Fair Park. This often leads to gentrification and displacement, displacing aging residents. A recent analysis of Zillow data found that home prices in 75215 rose more than all but two zip codes in the state from 2016 to 2023.
But just blocks away, an old neighborhood is coming back to life. The nonprofit Forest Forward is working to revitalize the historic Forest Theater, once a cultural hub for the area. The city is sponsoring a specialty clinic to take over the former Forest Hospital, one of only five black hospitals in the 1960s.
Countering decades of redlining and other racist tools will take time. And putting I-345 in the canyon will continue to siphon money north.South Dallas' biggest hope may be that the area's growth creates enough congestion for everyone.
This story originally appeared in the August issue of the magazine. D Magazine. Write destination [email protected].
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Matt Goodman is Online Editorial Director. D Magazine. He writes about a man who was a surgeon who killed someone.
