We Are the Best! (2013)

IMDB

We Are the Best! (2013): 13-yr-old Swedish girls form a punk band, despite not knowing music. Alienation, friendship, adolescent energy. B-

CityLine, Palisades and Strip Shopping Centers

I pledged to myself that I wasn't going to respond to the straw man argument by Rodger Jones of The Dallas Morning News dismissing criticism of the proposed Trinity tollroad. If I weren't already familiar with Jones's work, I would have guessed that he was merely trolling. "Don't feed the trolls" is advice I usually try to live by. To my benefit, D Magazine's Peter Simek rebuts Jones so I don't have to.

Jones' point, in short, is that the anti-highway and anti-Trinity Toll Road folks argue that highways don't lead to development. Then he points to a handful of developments to show that, yes, highways spur development.

I know, I know. I heard you groan. See, I've been trying to ignore it. But stay with me.

First, let's dismiss the straw men. No one claims that highways don't spur development. Rather, the argument is that highways spur the wrong kind of development in urban settings, development that generally promotes inefficient land use and contribute to broader urban decay. Yes, highways create development. They also incentivize development around cheap, undeveloped land.

Source: Frontburner.

So, enough with Jones and his straw men. That's the easy, obvious part of Simek's article. It's the rest of what Simek says that requires more thought.

First Place: Pearce 49, Mesquite Horn 46

From 2015 01 13 Mesquite Horn vs Pearce

In District 10-6A basketball action, the JJ Pearce Mustangs men's basketball team beat the Mesquite Horn Jaguars 49-46 at the Pearce gym.

More after the jump.

Barton Fink (1991)

IMDB

Barton Fink (1991): Early Coen Bros. NY playwright over his head in Hollywood. Surreal but I already said Coen Bros. Too many loose ends. B-

Still More Thoughts on the Center of Dallas

Last week, I was really provoked by urban designer Patrick Kennedy's assertion that the center of Dallas had moved north to or near Richardson.

The center of town has shifted to swaths of 635 and 75 up through Plano. The center of town is no longer Dallas, but the North Dallas border.

Source: StreetSmart.

My takeaway? That Richardson needed to adopt Kennedy's strategy for Dallas: Densification. Transit. Walkability. I stand by that.

But today, I want to back up a little. Is Kennedy on to something when he says the "center of town" is up near Richardson? Kinda. There's no doubt that significant development in last half century has happened north of Dallas and continues to this day. But, let's face it. Richardson is located somewhere near the geographic center of the area from downtown Dallas to McKinney and Frisco, but it lacks the urban core that most people think of when they think of the "center of town." Dallas is going to remain the "center of town" no matter how much decay it suffers from.

After the jump, what Richardson is instead.

A Most Wanted Man (2014)

IMDB

A Most Wanted Man (2014): Germans, jihad and CIA in a cerebral le Carré spy thriller w/ Philip Seymour Hoffman. What more could you want? B+

Showdown: Richardson 80, Berkner 74

From 2015 01 09 Richardson vs Berkner

In an early season battle of District 10-6A unbeatens, the Richardson Eagles men's basketball team outlasted the Berkner Rams 80-74 at the Rams gym. Richardson jumped to an early 7-0, but Berkner battled back to take a 33-31 halftime lead. Richardson came out strong again after the break, outscoring Berkner by 12 in the third quarter. Berkner rallied back in the fourth quarter but could never quite close the gap.

More after the jump.

Further Thoughts on the Center of Dallas

Yesterday, I mused on the implications of an assertion by urban designer Patrick Kennedy:

The center of town has shifted to swaths of 635 and 75 up through Plano. The center of town is no longer Dallas, but the North Dallas border.

Source: StreetSmart.

Kennedy had a prescription for how Dallas could wrestle the center of town back south to Dallas: Densification. Transit. Walkability. The implications to me were that Richardson needed to steal a page from Kennedy's playbook in order to hold the center of town in Richardson.

Being the center means that there is something in all directions. Today let's complete a tour d'horizon.

Center of Dallas is Now in Richardson

Professional urban designer (and unprofessional gadfly) Patrick Kennedy makes an audacious claim about Dallas in the D Magazine blog StreetSmart:

My fundamental point of this work and one I make over and over again in my various presentations is that we’ve been applying suburban thinking to the downtown area, which has in effect, forced it to compete with the suburbs. That’s a fight it cannot win. And has effectively suburbanized it (while ruralizing South Dallas as Peter Simek has correctly pointed out) as the center of town has shifted to swaths of 635 and 75 up through Plano. The center of town is no longer Dallas, but the North Dallas border.

Source: StreetSmart.

Kennedy doesn't say by what measure the center of town has moved north (population? economic activity? traffic? world classiness?), so it's impossible to confirm or falsify the audacious claim. But Kennedy is the unofficial leader of the "tear down IH345" movement in Dallas as well as a member in good standing of the "Kill The Trinity Tollroad Project." He makes a living from this stuff (or, if not from his gadfly work for D Magazine, at least from other stuff related to urban design). So, when he says, "I do know cities," we probably ought to listen. So, let's make him king for a day and just assume he does know what he's talking about. Let's just assume he's right -- the center of Dallas is now somewhere in or near Richardson -- and consider the implications.

Overtime: Richardson 71, Mesquite Horn 65

From 2015 01 06 Mesquite Horn vs Richardson

What a game! The Richardson Eagles men's basketball team defeated Mesquite Horn 71-65 in overtime Tuesday night in the Eagles gym. There was never more than a one point difference in the score at the end of each quarter. But someone had to win and eventually the Eagles prevailed in overtime. With the win, the Eagles move to 2-0 in District 10-6A while the Jaguars drop to 0-2. Don't expect the Jaguars to stay down long.

More after the jump.