What Dallas Still Needs Before It Can Be a World-Class City

In a metropolis where money , size , and standing are king , Dallas is almost compulsively preoccupied with its ranking to gas itself as " world class . " Yet just at the national tier of best American city , it ’s in the main accepted that Dallas falls somewhere in the top 10 and unremarkably jostles with in - state rival Houston for the fifth or sixth spot , depending on what metric unit those ranking are based upon ( cost of living , school organisation , number of NFL crown in the 1990s ) . For an area so big and so affluent , Dallas still never cracks the Top Four in the US – let alone the world – here ’s why and what it can do to climb up the list .

We must embrace public transportation

New York City , Los Angeles , and Chicago . The big three . And the one common denominator is public transferral . Sure , you ’ll argue that a life in Los Angeles without a car is , at the very least , difficult and likely better defined as “ a nightmare . ” But the huge bus scheme in LA , along with metro lines now running to Santa Monica , make public transportation to far flung destinations such as Orange County an genuine possible action . Dallasites love their cars so much that even the estimation of accept public transit to Arlington to see the Cowboys or Rangers and not paying hundreds of buck to car park is a bridge too far .

We need urban neighborhoods that aren’t self-contained

One of the great mystery of the “ humans class ” cities is that , while you do have access to all the bright and shining marquee case and concerts in the mettle of Downtown , most resident find their settlement – especially in niche neighborhoods inside the heart of the city . or else of have to dilute up the car and drive and car park and fight traffic , they instead make their own neighborhoods the destination . The freedom of being capable to ride a bicycle a short length to a kill up pic showing or small food festival give the feeling of camaraderie and biotic community even when living amongst a few million people . neck of the woods such as Deep Ellum and Oak Cliff seem to have embrace that spirit and hopefully many more will follow suit .

We need to bridge the ideological gap between the suburbs and the city

The antic in Dallas is “ I ’ll never go north of 635 ” or , if you really want to double down , “ I ’ll never go northward of Mockingbird . ” However , these imaginary boundary lines mean that you ’re probably missing out on the best pho in the city or this one crazy karaoke bar with the tastiest homemade empanadas you ’ll ever eat . The culture warfare between the pelvis urban meat occupant and those who live what is in reality just a very inadequate space by has separate the metropolis and also makes it really hard to convince your friends to hang out once one of you has crossed Dallas ’s interpretation of the Mason - Dixon line .

There must be more food trucks

I get laid what you ’re thinking , MORE food trucks ? However , Dallas has always been a city built on eating , for good or worse . And the more that novel and interesting cuisine can be easily access by the magnanimous number of people in the DFW area , the more that the city ’s pallet will grow beyond , “ Did you hear that a novel Boston Market opened up at the strip show plaza down the street ? ”

There ought to be more respect for the Dallas Music Legends

Dallas sometimes forgets that we are responsible for , in whole or in big part , for grant the world acts like Blind Lemon Jefferson , Erykah Badu , Norah Jones , Steve Miller , Don Henley ( we are only partially to pick and we are kind of sorry about The Eagles ) , The D.O.C. , the Old 97 ’s , Stevie Ray Vaughan , and unnumbered others who have contributed heavily to the road map of modern medicine . So possibly it ’s metre that Dallas both fully celebrates the talent that was grown here and funds the nontextual matter programs which will encourage a whole new crop of groundbreaking musical bit .

Seriously, UberPOOL, where is it?

While Uber has taken the metroplex by violent storm just as it has in other major metropolis , Dallas has yet to join the ranks of the earth - class metropolis which bask the UberPOOL divine service . An even cheaper , if a bit more meter - consuming , way of life to get from Point A to Point B , UberPOOL is more than just another way to make it home late night from the prevention . By carpooling with stranger , the service shatters the isolation of ride sharing and offer up revelers and commuters alike an affordable way to conform to new people in the metropolis or at least offer up them a courtesy grin as they crank up their podcast and avoid further eye contact for the duration of the ride .

The city needs to preserve architecture and stop turning everything into weird boxy apartment complexes

A common lament amongst visitors to the country is how many oppressive and loge - like apartment complex scatter the landscape painting of the metroplex . Dallas struggle with toeing the line between keep historic construction and build lots of shiny , new thing . alas , time does n’t treat those shining new things kindly . establish an personal identity for Dallas will have to involve reimagining and repurposing historical buildings instead of taking a wrecking clump to anything with a little detritus on it .

We must embrace and encourage the diversity of the city

Everyone knows the Dallas stereotypes : freehanded hair , oil money , a diehard love of the Cowboys despite not sniff a title in two decades . But the urban center is full of diversity and it call for to do more to embrace and sustain that diversity . Events like Pride in Oak Lawn , Hispanic Heritage Month , Oak Cliff Film Festival , and the Asian Film Festival all serve Dallas become known for more on a interior level than just “ Who Shot JR ? ”

Maybe cool it with the Calatrava bridges for a bit?

The Trinity River has , for ten , been a waste of little to no use to anyone unless they were looking to incline of a body or needing to get a real quick case of West Nile . gratefully , all that is switch and the metropolis has bulge seeing the river as an genuine attraction and a gateway between business district / Uptown and Oak Cliff . In monastic order to keep this Modern embrace of the gateway between downtown and South Dallas , the urban center went a footling unhinged with new bridge , all designed by Santiago Calatrava . Now it ’s not that the Margaret Hunt Hill ( Large Marge ) and Margaret McDermott ( nickname TBD ) bridges are n’t lovely . But we do n’t have to hoard ‘ em all like Happy Meal toy .

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