Around the country the escalating pace of decentralization has raised concern among disparate groups. Environmentalists are worried about disappearing green space; advocates for the poor are worried about concentrated poverty; firms are worried that potential workers are not where the jobs are, and everyone is tired of sitting in traffic. "Smart-growth" movements have popped up from New Jersey to Oregon, and sprawl has even crept on to the national agenda." (The Economist) According to the celebrated Italian architect Renzo Piano, "It is an almost impossible job to design a city because what makes a city beautiful is that it's not designed. Time makes cities beautiful." (Europe)
If there's a revolution, I'm Tom Paine. (Art S Revolutionary)
Musea is calling for a civil civil war, a lawful and legal, non-violent and peaceful, protest and opposition to the Dallas controllers of the 19th and 20th century. This town has been dominated too long by Big Business interests. The results have been disastrous, every neighborhood a failure. Dallas, it's got a pocket book but not a soul.
Musea calls for a new city that supports ALL its citizens, (including but not limited to big biz) and that balances economic opportunity - a right for all ,not a trickled down handout from big biz or the government.
Musea calls for an end to 'business as usual' and promotes smart city planning that is a framework of growth for the people of Dallas - all the people of Dallas, all the sections of Dallas.
Musea calls for a city government that supports its citizens with help, not red tape, with solutions, not bureaucracy and long lines - a city government that is responsible for its actions and the actions of its employees, a city government that is completely open with no secret agenda to hide, a city government that gets things done. And most importantly a city that puts Dallas ahead of developers, and petty provincialism.
THE COMBATANTS
There are 2 sides in the struggle for Dallas: The BUSINESS as USUAL (BU pronounced 'boo') side consisting of Big Business leaders, Developers, Dallas Media - specifically Belo Corp. owner of our only daily, The Dallas Morning News, and Channel 8 TV, and the Mayor, City Manager, and City council (with the exception of Laura Miller) all mired in 'roadblock' leadership. And the NEW CITY side consisting of Musea, all non business-consumed people, and everyone who can't afford a sky box.
CAPITALISM AS A RELIGION, IS BANKRUPT!
Business As Usual's Dallas is: Ross Perot, Kennedy Assassination, Dallas Cowboys, Dallas TV Show, 7-11 Stores and Oil.
New City's Dallas is (all the above PLUS) Top 40 (radio format invented by KLIF owner Gordon McLendon in '55), Neiman-Marcus (artful excess), Deep Ellum (music), Fair Park architecture and state fair, Tex-Mex Cuisine and the frozen margarita, Old Red Courthouse, Barney the Purple Dinosaur, Debbie Does Dallas Video, Pegasus - city symbol, The Mansion Hotel, Musea & the Art Rev., the largest forest inside a city, Great Dallas Painters of the 30's, (plus The Van Cliburn Contest and Kimball in Fort Worth)
Now confess, you probably never thought of Dallas as THAT city. Business leaders don't want you to think of Dallas as culture or personality - it stands in the way of business as usual. But we LIKE to stand in the way of business as usual. Boo!
Let's talk frankly. Think fast. Name 3 U.S. cities that you'd most love to visit. Quick now. They are ___ , ___ , & ___. Who did you name? NYC, New Orleans, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Miami, a resort town out west? Did you name Dallas? Of course not. Business has killed this city and turned it into a hollow shell with 24 hour traffic.
Musea thinks its citizens deserve better. Dallas deserves better. This article compares our vision, the vision of the New City with the lack of vision of the Business as Usual side. Compare , then e-mail or write us your comments. I'll answer as many as possible and without being snide or flippant.
First we'll list our vision (NC) then that of BU:
NC: From a tiny frontier river crossing in the 1840s, Dallas created its own raison d'etre: the collective choices of all of its citizens.
BU: "From a tiny frontier river crossing in the 1840s Dallas created its own raison d'etre: commerce." (Quote from DMN 10/10/99)
NC: A public square - a meeting place where anyone can gather for any reason - free of cars, government and business control, and ads. Every European city has one.
BU: Stress sprawl and lack of community
NC: Neighborhood Buses that take people where they want to go - i.e. their neighborhood shops and cafes.
BU: All buses can only go downtown and back. Of course it's stupid and out of date, but we never change.
NC: Fix the basics first. Show us little successes in improved city government.
BU: Designer Bridges! Olympics in 2006! etc.
NC: Public playgrounds with either neighborhood or city gov. supervisors (like lifeguards at pools) Plus a giant playground at Fair Park.
BU: That's McDonald's department. Why risk lawsuits?
NC: A single major media source that is ad free.
BU: The Dallas Morning News and Local TV will supply all the gore reports and Hollywood press releases Dallas needs.
NC: Knowing that major roads destroy neighborhoods (look at the wasteland on all sides of downtown Dallas near any of the major highways) : in certain areas of high density populations we say: KILL ROADS AND SAVE NEIGHBORHOODS
BU: Build roads and kill neighborhoods.
NC: State Fair Midway open all summer, State Fair extended, and a town pool in or around Fair Park.
BU: It's a bad neighborhood. Let's let it decay and not renew it.
NC: Help promote neighborhood recycling on a volunteer basis, pour the money back into neighborhood improvements and reduce garbage pickup. Every city in the US is running out of space for garbage. Waste has doubled since 1960. 40% is paper - recycle, 13% is yard waste, leave on the yard, that's 1/2 the problem right there. Try innovative recycling with the rest - compost organic garbage, or raise garbage eating worm farms - try everything.
BU: Keep piling it up - garbage and conspicuous consumption.
NC: Get cars out of downtown. Turn the streets back to pedestrians. Make downtown Dallas the biggest and best open mall in the world. Promote all day and all night activities. Back up safety with walking, or bike, or horse, police patrols. Free parking on the edges.
BU: Shut down downtown after 6 PM. And during the daytime hours make it as undesirable to come to as possible: parking a nightmare, crime a problem, and nighttime activity impossible.
NC: In areas of high density (and low or no, car zones) - downtown, or Deep Ellum for example - provide and maintain public restrooms . We do it on major Texas Highways.
BU: Make it the hassle and responsibility of small businesses.
NC: Solve the problem of hardcore homeless. Somebody must have a solution.
BU: Do nothing until a national focus on Dallas, then sweep them under the rug like we always do.
NC: Have helpers that meet anyone at the door of city hall and then walk them through whatever they're trying to do until it's finished. And simplify or eliminate red tape . Ex. - in Hong Kong you can open up a business by filling in a ONE PAGE DOCUMENT!
BU: Charge plenty to park at City Hall, make it confusing to figure out where anything is, promote long lines and bureaucracy, stonewall any citizen in his attempt to do anything, and when in doubt ad a fee and a restriction.
NC: One word DAYCARE. Open up the schools after hours, set up neighborhood centers, whatever is necessary.
BU: One word WHOCARES. Lawyers say helping our citizens will get us sued.
NC: No more sports arena lies or hidden agendas. Keep sports expenditures within reason. Not everyone lives for hockey or car racing. And why not put playgrounds (sports fields for kids) ahead of arena tax breaks.
BU: The Cowboys and Hicks comes first. Pot holes , good bus service, libraries, children support and education, and Fair Park restoration are low on the list of priorities.
NC: Truth on the River Project - it's a tollway (our motto: not more roads - less traffic!) and it's levees for developers. Buy out those in the flood plain with real money and good deals, turn them into parks (Musea has even suggested a public herd of cattle on these grasslands). And use the millions and millions of $$$ saved to further the real needs of the city.
BU: The tollway will increase congestion. The polluted lakes will never be used but will help divide rich North from poor South even more, and levee saved real estate will make a few rich (but that's the hidden agenda)
NC: Preserve ,protect, and promote our great asset , the Rochester Forest Area, the largest untamed forest within any U.S. city.
BU: Start the chainsaws, and set up billboards.
NC: Follow Houston's lead (went from 10,000 billboards down to 5,300) Get rid of the big biz billboards and bus ads (that broadcast who's influencing city policies with their money.)
BU: Sellout in every way we can. Name the stadium after American Airlines and get the money.
NC: Promote policies of beautiful and well crated architecture with contests, public discussions, even tax breaks.
BU: Everything should look ugly like all the ugly over-windowed, monotonous, every one a clone, over-priced, red brick houses north of LBJ.
NC: Pegasus as the official symbol of Dallas.
BU: I'll have to check with the lawyers again.
NC: In promoting Fair Park we support doming the Cotton Bowl.
BU: Mayor says wait (hidden agenda?, 1 in a million shot for Olympics in next millennium?)
NC: Learn from the tragedy of Deep Ellum, the thriving warehouse district was alive with art activity. Then the city got involved. They shut down everything while re-doing the streets, harassed all the cool clubs etc.,. re-zoned it in a way that drove all the artists out and turned the cache of the area over to cafes and other non artist stores, then as it died of any real interest, celebrated it as a city supported success.
BU: Deep Ellum is now a city supported success.
NC: Protect the few old building we still have. Support and encourage conferences like the recent one that brought together The Dallas County Heritage Society, The Dallas Historical Society, Preservation Dallas, the Sixth Floor Museum, the Texas/Dallas History and Archives division of the Public Library and the William P Clements Center for Southwestern Studies at SMU. (that's almost as many organizations as there are buildings in Dallas built before 1900. And sadly I'm not kidding.)
BU: Do like we've done before at City Hall - shuffle paper while bulldozers demolish.
NC: Bring back Old Red, the most recognizable building in Dallas. Restore it as a Museum of Dallas. Bring back the tower that used to be on top of it.
BU: Use it as file storage and watch it crumble.
NC: Support Laura Miller. Ever since we abolished the at -large city council members we've gotten a more feisty and better represented city council. But for some reason as soon as the minority city council members get into city hall they become automatons of big business. Not Laura! My city hero.
BU: Conflict leadership that builds roadblocks and rubber stamps arena deals.
NC: Fix the libraries. Allow anyone to contribute books and magazines to any library. Set up exchange programs where anyone can trade one book for another of equal value. Have neighborhood drives to collect no longer wanted books from citizens for that neighborhood library. Keep them open longer. Maybe even day care or night care centers. Supply free Internet.
BU: Maintain endless rules including not accepting any books (they don't have the right spine, we didn't requisition them, they're not in the budget, it's got a cover where the painted woman has a torn dress, blah, blah, blah.)
NC: Control street construction. Prohibit it on busy days (ex. the shopping Friday after Christmas, etc.)
BU: Pave it today, and utilities tear it up tomorrow. And long traffic delays on both days!
NC: Consider all the Musea suggestions in our issue of Triangle Town.
BU: Cool is a four letter word.
NC: End speed bumps. Not only do they punish innocent drivers 100% of the time, they delay police and fire dept. responses.
BU: I never thought of that
NC: Not all cops are good. Weed out the bad cops and support the good ones. And stop the police car chases. They're too dangerous to civilians. Recent DMN headline: Teen Dies When Truck Overturns in Police Chase
BU: Blindly support all cops no matter what they do.
NC: Learn the lesson of Highway 35. The traffic along this main Tx. highway (The Mexico/US border - San Antonio - Austin - Waco - D/FW) is so congested that it would require 18 lanes in some spots just to handle the traffic we have NOW. The truth is no amount of building more roads, will catch up with the increasing car traffic. Commutes in Dallas are 2nd longest in country: Atlanta 36.5 miles daily, Dallas 29.5 daily, LA 20.5. Dallas has the 1,2,&5 most dangerous intersections in the country, #1 Belt Line/ Midway , #2 W. Park Blvd. / Preston, and #5 Belt Line/ Preston. Over sized trucks kill too often in highway pileups. And Dallas Plan, in total insanity, wants yet another tollway that will turn the Trinity River into a highway shoulder. Plus north of town, highway officials are looking for a name for a new 5 -tier interchange at LBJ / Central. We suggest Congestion Central. Also note most commuters live in the suburbs, pollute Dallas, yet don't pay city taxes, so those of us living here have to carry the extra burden estimated at 75% of the cost of added pollution, congestion, wear and tear on infrastructure, etc. Then add to all this, endless road construction delays (a lot of it due to cable lines spreading out across the city). STOP THE MADNESS. Not more roads, less cars!
BU: I love the smell of pollution and insanity in the morning.
NC: Free, yes I said FREE bus and rail. That will help end traffic madness somewhat, but not a minute too soon.
NC: Promote the Art Revolution. Make Dallas the art center of the world. Ex. Support a real art center, and or neighborhood art centers that really engage the public and support not only great art but community art. If they're named after rich people they aren't any good. (Bass Hall is kitsch, and Myerson is incredibly limited as a workable concert hall. Both are rich only ,dress code.)
BU: We have the Art District (something nobody wanted and nobody uses, except for a few 'tony' events for the rich. Art in Dallas is like the Majestic Theater, it's for show only.)
NC: Treat all land developers fairly
BU: Give special treatment to Hicks Sports Arena, and Staubach's housing development.
NC: Get a daily that supports Dallas over big biz excesses. Ex. the city's worst 15 water polluters:
BU: Dallas Morning News instead of supporting Dallas against water polluters, a) charges the city for an ad that under federal requirement will list the names of violators, and b) in its story about the 15 Dallas area companies who violated rules designed to keep dangerous pollutants out of the city's sewer system this year, didn't even name them. The key is big biz comes before the welfare of Dallas.
NC: And let's talk Big Business. Instead of the city giving away the farm to attract new industries to Dallas (a sort of legal blackmail by relocating companies. And why do we even WANT companies here that demand such loot before relocating? Let them go to Houston or Atlanta, that'll punish them plenty!), we suggest they REWARD those companies already here. How about a 1% reduction in city taxes for every year a corporation STAYS here. Start in 2000. After 100 years, if they're still here, they're free of city taxes. That would reward Dallas companies and promote a tax base stability.
BU: When Big Biz asks outrageous demands for tax breaks repeat the mantra "Dallas is never good enough as is, so : How High should I jump?"
NC: Set up Community Bank Accounts to empower communities to resolve their problems.
BU: I don't read anything outside of mainstream - so what's a CBA?
NC: Actively promote tourism and conventions.
BU: Why?
NC: Back to the drawing board for the Trinity Project. It's a hopeless mess that nobody wants. Do it right or don't ruin it. Don't do anything on this or ANY MAJOR CITY PROJECT until YOU HAVE A CONSENSUS FROM ALL CITIZENS. And this does NOT mean rubber stamped community meetings that never work. Also work WITH the suburbs not against them. Cooperation the key.
BU: Ruin it with the plan we've got now supported by a small percentage of all voters and opposed by the majority of citizens.
NC: Recognize the problem of 'sprawl' and oppose it:
Long commutes, green space plowed under, pollution, disrupted wildlife, altered rivers; and concentrated poverty zones that usually kill downtown areas, and increased taxes to pay for police, fire, schools, and infrastructure.
BU: Build more roads! Learn less words
NC: If you're dumb as dumb can be // Must be from D.I.S.D. Recognize what a mess public schools are. Don't abandon them, fix them.
BU: Our test scores were up a little, say all those school bureaucrats making $50 thousand + for doing secretarial work.
NC: Set up a procedure for firing lousy gov. and school employees and USE IT! Also when you try innovative solutions to solve problems you will always have some that don't work. BEFORE TRYING ANYTHING set up a system that will stop and end any program that doesn't work.
BU: If it fails keep doing it. That's the motto for our school and gov.
NC: DART buses stop killing people and then trying to cover it up. "Relatives of a girl killed by a DART bus apparently will receive less money to settle their lawsuit than what the agency spent in legal battles connected to the case, records show." (DMN) Facts: this year alone 5 people have been killed by DART buses. State statue limits DART's financial liability in fatal accidents to $100,000 per individual. We say a) stop killing people, b) any driver that kills someone is fired, c) stop lawsuits and pay the $100,000 EVERYTIME someone is accidentally killed no matter who's at fault. It's the LEAST the city can do in compensation. And FIRE this guy:
BU: "We don't like spending a lot of money on legal fees, but at the same time, we recognize the importance of making sure ... that DART's position and assets are reasonably protected." Jesse Oliver, DART board vice chairman.
NC: LEARN from other city successes. Advice on what works from Chattanooga's Revitalization Campaign: 1. Think local and diverse. Start with neighborhood associations & include people from all perspectives. 2. Seek broad input - the visioning process. Find out what the residents want (as opposed to what the developers and city gov. wants to do). 3. Listen to the experts and stop trying to re-invent the wheel. Also stop doing what has consistently failed. Set a year long theme, revitalizing the city and line up speakers from across the country. 4. Start small. Make sure the first project is diverse and doable. Success builds confidence in the process and the city. (Parade). Also from Charleston S.C. - support tourism with rigorous historic-preservation ordinances to protect the city's treasures. From Baltimore - replace high rise public housing (see West Dallas monstrosities) with mixed-income rowhouses. From Portland Ore, alt. transportation led to less traffic, so they turned a 4 lane expressway into a waterfront park. From Chicago - local communities make a bad situation worse by using planning laws, such as minimum plot size to exclude low-income families. The result is scattered low-density development that keeps affordable housing out, increases the cost of infrastructure, separates inner - city residents from new jobs in the suburbs, and makes public transport less efficient. It also means greater racial and economic segregation. Also, any hope of regional co-operation is too often drowned in a staggering array of local - gov. entities. (Economist)
BU: Huh???
Dallas is not a great city now. It has the potential for greatness if we end the control of city government by it's long time puppet masters, big business; and move forward in a way that is smart and that has the consensus of all the citizens of the city. The future is bright. Pegasus can soar!
MUSEA