After reading Jeff Speck’s book Walkable City, Brian Reinhart had to respond. The book spoke to the issues he and his friends faced in Dallas so clearly, outlining many of the problems they’ve had and the aspirations they have. He wanted to give Speck “an update on the lay of…
When Urban Orchard Market opened to moderate fanfare last October, there was hope that maybe, finally, Downtown Dallas was grown up enough to support a grocery store. It’s not. Ten months after opening, the jaunty “Now Open” banner still hanging above the door, the market has quietly closed. A downtown…
We get the impulse. The easiest way to dive into a story about Oak Cliff, especially if you’ve never spent more than a few days there, is to talk about November 1963. Failing that, you can talk about crime, making it seem as if people who cross the Trinity heading…
What kind of rich people would be more fun to have living along the Katy Trail — family-oriented rich people who prefer short buildings, or fast-paced rich people in high-rises? The current property on 4719 Cole Ave. is not habitable for any type of rich people. The Saltillo apartments building…
Armed with at least his Infowars.com press pass and his smartphone camera, Frisco resident Brett Sanders is staging a one-man crusade for the Bill of Rights. For each of the last three Fridays, Sanders, who says he is also involved in the Open Carry movement, has filmed a different entity…
After the conclusion of arguments that started Friday morning, District Judge Phyllis Lister Brown ruled against a neighborhood group seeking a temporary injunction aimed at stopping construction of a 130,000-square-foot Sam’s Club store near the intersection of Haskell Avenue and U.S. 75. The decision means the city can issue building…
The second act of the East Village Association’s battle to reset the clock on a zoning change that would allow Trammell Crow to build a proposed 130,000-square-foot Sam’s Club near Haskell Avenue and U.S. 75 will not be resolved until at least Monday afternoon, after Judge Phyllis Lister Brown was…
Just about two weeks ago, all seemed lost for a group of residents who were upset about a Trammell Crow development plan that included building of a Sam’s Club near Haskell Avenue and U.S. 75. Zoning for the development had already been approved, so the City Plan Commission’s July 10…
How many Walmarts does a city need to thrive? People living in the hip circle of neighborhoods surrounding downtown Dallas say we have enough Walmarts, Walmart-affiliated stores and other big boxes to sustain us and it’s time to consider some development that isn’t a giant box and acres of ashphalt…
The few parts of the vaunted New Cities Summit that actually dealt with Dallas left Unfair Park feeling a bit nonplussed. We were glad Dallas was selected to host the conference, of course. Anything that brings together a bunch of really smart people to discuss pressing urban issues like density,…
The Dallas County Health and Human Services Department has had a rough week. First, the state cracked down on the department for allegedly falsifying county STI records. The manager of HIV-STI division, Lashonda Worthey, has been fired, and the Texas Department of State Health Services is set to launch a…
Under the city’s development code, the proper time for opponents to voice their concerns about the Sam’s Club proposed next to CityPlace was a year ago this month, before the City Plan Commission and City Council unanimously approved a zoning change for the property to allow a 100,000-square-foot warehouse store…
Sam’s Club will have to wait an extra couple of months before it plants a 140,000-square-foot outpost next to CityPlace. So decided the City Plan Commission, which this afternoon moved consideration of the development plan until July 22. It was a victory for neighbors, albeit a tiny one. As we…
Neighbors are, at this very moment, rallying opposition to the Sam’s Club that Trammell Crow plans to build at CityPlace. They’ve launched the inevitable Change.org petition. They’ve booked Councilman Adam Medrano for a community meeting tonight. They are scouring the final development plan the City Plan Commission is scheduled to…
Cheer up, Dallas. Yes, your hometown newspaper just completely snubbed you with its Best Neighborhoods list, and, yes, the chances that The Dallas Morning News will ever include any place south of Plano are close to nil, but there is hope, a development on the horizon that just might thrust…
Has it really been a year? Have 12 months really passed since The Dallas Morning News trolled us all with its rich, lily-white and generally boring Best Neighborhoods list? No, it’s been 11. But the paper apparently couldn’t wait the extra 30 days, so eager it was to roll out…
It’s a shame, really, that D Magazine didn’t continue its morning show experiment. Not because we derived any pleasure from watching D: The Broadcast (we probably wouldn’t have, but never say never) but because it would have been mildly wonderful to watch Wick Allison dance away from yesterday morning’s Michael…
Joel Burns probably isn’t the only person in Fort Worth irritated that The Weather Channel’s app shows pictures of Dallas when it delivers forecasts for Cowtown. But the soon-to-be-former Fort Worth City Councilman, whose 2010 “It Gets Better” speech went viral, is the only one to merit a bitchy response…
Reason 5,312 why reporting for print is better than TV: There’s no video camera to catch your journalism fails. That time I knelt in a nice fresh pile of dog turds while I snapped a picture? The evidence was washed away with the next load of laundry. That time NBC…
We have a nice little staff here at the Observer, but sometimes we need some side action. Here’s how you might be able to help. Writers We accept freelance pitches for stories of all shapes and sizes. Specifically, we’re looking for:…
Dallas Midtown, the mixed-use wonderland that will replace the decrepit Valley View Center, will have everything a modern urbanist could want. If everything lives up to developer Scott Beck’s vision, there will be several thousand apartments and condos, hundreds of thousands of feet of office and retail space, artists to…
Nowadays, Dallas’ network of tunnels are pretty widely reviled as an urban planning nightmare that have sucked the life off downtown’s streets. They are a “sordid story,” Downtown Dallas Inc. CEO John Crawford told the City Council this morning. “Frankly, we’re trying to do away with them as quickly as…
