The big picture. It's what prevents us from making short-term decisions that yield undesirable long-term effects.
From housing projects and smelter plants to highways and levees, West Dallas has historically been the recipient of more than than its share of undesirable side effects.
But the Trinity River Project is changing all that. That big, green elephant in our living room suddenly has us wanting to be in charge of a new West Dallas. We have the opportunity to create a new kind of place that is connected, vibrant, green, inclusive, pedestrian-friendly, honors its history, and — dare we say it — establishes a new standard for urban livability.
To achieve this vision, however, we're going to have to reach past traditional silo-style planning, geographic fiefdoms, and institutional thinking that can perpetuate the legacies of short-term decision-making.
This "new West Dallas" just may begin by re-engineering our transportation infrastructure (streets, bridges, sidewalks, parking, bike lanes, thoroughfare planning) and transit choices — all of which are part of a "cardiovascular system" which can either nourish West Dallas' economic future and livability ... or continue to pass it by.
What does this mean? What's in the works? How would this affect current West Dallas stakeholders? What does this offer future West Dallas stakeholders?
Find out on July 16 at the next West Dallas Chamber of Commerce membership meeting.
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