The View from Here: Redux

Another Ground Hog Day and it’s only a few days until Spring in Texas. Despite all of the national and international news to the contrary, the Lone Star State has yet to feel any adverse economic effects. Residential construction has scaled back a bit, but commercial construction is still going like gangbusters, and the rest of the economy, from oil to semiconductors, still hums along. In fact, with the discovery of Natural Gas in Tarrant County, there’s a localized boomlet in certain parts of the metroplex. The airline problems hit certain neighborhoods pretty hard several years ago, but with the gradual recovery of the sector, the two Great Carriers in town seem to be back to an almost normal state.

The Dallas side of the city has probably never been better. Despite the stillborn bridge project and funny business about road construction, a new Foster opera house is well underway, and there’s been a proliferation of lively urban districts coming to live; both historic neighborhood hubs and more often totally invented character grafted into the relatively suburban fabric. Strips that started life as simply hardware stores and grocers now see new life as mixed-use and mixed-hours districts. The most successful district has taken an ancient trolley line and built around it more activity and a denser population that it ever saw when it was actually viable transportation. No metropolis in Texas will ever be a railroad city, but the big D is beginning to take on the character of the older and more interesting parts of Los Angeles.

Along with this, I’ve a nifty new tool: www.walkscore.com (Special thanks to Matt M.) Enter any address that Google Maps can find, and it’ll calculate the walkability quotient of the area. Absolutely fascinating to play with. 70 or higher is considered walkable. The current Chez Moi: 85. The house I grew up in: 25. Lower Manhattan: 100 (of course.)

Now if only the working / commuting piece would work itself out.