The Urban Neighborhoods of Dallas

Victorian-Era Home in Dallas

Dallas has a history stretching back to the mid- 19th Century, but the boom of the 1980s seems to have changed it forever. The metropolitan area is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States. It's also the core of the largest inland metropolitan area in the United States that lacks any navigable link to the sea.

Given its also located on a prairie without geographic confines or natural barriers, its a wonder there are any skyscrapers ar anything that grew to reflect in some way the typical notion of a city with a downtown core surrounded by neighborhoods. But its my understanding that has been the criticism of Dallas, that there's no downtown. It's also one the city is working hard to overcome. 

The area is undergoing a transition as dozens of residential conversions and new high rise condos bring more permanent residents downtown. The number of residents downtown has doubled in the last decade to reach just shy of 30,000. Moreover the nearby neighborhood of Oak Lawn has had a ten percent increase in population since 2000 and has about 40,000 residents. 

Buildings in Downtown Dallas

An improvement over Oak Lawn is an area on the opposite side of Turtle Creek/Katy Trail known as Uptown. The number of vacant lots here is far fewer and the neighborhood is both more walkable, without the pedestrian threats of busy streets such as Lemmon and Oak Lawn Avenue which cut through the neighborhood of Oak Lawn. 

Most of the buildings in downtown Dallas and the surrounding neighborhoods are from the past 40 years. It's also apparent from the buildings the area has become more dense over time. In the example of Oak Lawn, there are scattered single-family homes from the period of 1910-1930 around on large lots. One can assume the area was once primarily filled with these "streetcar suburb" type homes. As they have been demolished, apartment and condominium complexes have been filled in, in many cases without much thought towards planning. Instead of facing the street, many are lined along a narrow alleyway and sit four deep on the lot. 

I've long been an advocate of an organic building process that lets structures be replace piecemeal slowly, but the two neighborhoods give me pause. It seems clear that in the uptown area, structures have been cleared and replaced in large sections. The result is a better consistency and street scape. Of course this would not be the case if the structures had been replaced with the same type of structures, or at least the same orientation.

The other interesting neighborhood is known as State Thomas, which according to Wikipedia contains the largest collection of Victorian-era homes remaining in Dallas. These are mixed in with a variety of very attractive newer condominium buildings, with commercial uses such as restaurants mixed in. 

Another neighborhood that has been brought to my attention is known as Oak Cliff. It seems to have a number of advocates out there. I paid a visit myself and from my initial inspection, I can say with relative certainty the Wikipedia statement about State Thomas is not at all accurate. Perhaps it would be true should you add the word "restored" before "Victorian-era." 

From what I know, these neighborhoods, plus downtown are the most urban neighborhoods in the city. With a little luck, one of them will soon be home.