The Brookings Institution

The Number of Poor People in Dallas Suburbs Keeps Going Up

The suburbs stir up a lot of associations in the popular imagination. It covers territory as diverse as Leave It to Beaver and Blue Velvet. What the 'burbs don't usually evoke is poverty. For decades the war on poverty has been fought mostly in urban centers, but according to a new study out today f ... More >>

Golf Course Plan Needs a Strong Long Game

Here's hoping golfers take their eyes off the ball and see southern Dallas' desperation.

Shocker: DFW Public Transit Does a Terrible Job of Getting People To Work

Splashed across the front page of the Morning News today, large and above the fold, is an article detailing a new Brookings Institution study that measures how well public transit connects people and jobs in the nation's 100 most populous metropolitan areas: "D-FW among worst for getting to work on ... More >>

Now We're Really Screwed: Asians Are America's Fastest-Growing Immigrant Group

Oh, damn. Now white people are going to have to defend themselves on a second front. First it was the Mexicans swarming into the country and out-working us. Now the Asians are coming here in droves and out-smarting us. What's left for whites? Bowling? The big news in immigration today is a new Pew ... More >>

Mayor Mike's Version of Regionalism: Selling out Dallas to the 'Burbs

In his speech last week endorsing a new highway in the Trinity River flood zone, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings threw down a gauntlet. It was sort of a buried line. I guess not everybody heard it. I did. He said at one point, "I'm a regionalist," and then he said of people who oppose his view, "For tho ... More >>

The Good and Bad News Contained Within MDHA's "2011 State of Homelessness" Report

Metro Dallas Homeless AllianceA look at Dallas County's homeless population from the "2011 Annual 'Point-In-Time' Homeless Count and Census"​Leslie's at Dallas City Hall at this very moment, where Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance is announcing the formation of the Greater Dallas Homeless Policy Alli ... More >>

Talk the Talk: Mayor Mike's Pals Shovel Up the BS at Council Retreat

​Look, I know I just covered this in a column in the paper, but I can't resist coming back to the theme of Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings as a so-what clone of the last mayor we had around here, Tom Leppert. The target I find particularly irresistible this time is the group therapy session Rawlin ... More >>

How "Green" Is Dallas's Economy? Jobwise, Top 10 in the Country, Says Brookings Institution.

Brookings-Battelle Clean Economy Database​The city has a website, Green Dallas, that brags about programs, policies and initiatives that date back, so the site says, to the devastating drought of the 1950s -- "when the City of Dallas realized it could not take the environment for granted." And in ... More >>

Once Back in the Pack, Dallas Now the Top Destination for "Young People" After Austin

​There was a piece in this morning's New York Times about how Austin's now the top destination for the young American, all right. So notes Brookings Institution demographer William Frey, who adds Dallas to the list of Top Five destinations for the highly coveted 25-to-34-year-old. Only a few years ... More >>

Mexican Macro-economics

Whose Dole Is It, Anyway?

FAIR-y Tales

Russell Pearce and Other Illegal-Immigration Populists Rely on Misleading, Right-Wing Reports to Scapegoat Immigrants and Terrify Penny-Pinched Americans.

Tell Me More, Mayor Tom

Sam Merten​A Friend of Unfair Park alerts us: Mayor Tom Leppert is on today's episode of National Public Radio's Tell Me More, along with Utah Governor Gary Herbert. The subject: How Utah and Dallas are leading the economic recovery, per that Brookings Institution report to which we directed y ... More >>

Dallas Is On the "Road to Full Recovery"

Brookings Institution​At least, that's what the Brookings Institution says in its 52-page report Global Metro Monitor: The Path to Economic Recovery, which took a long, hard look at "data on economic output and employment in 150 of the world's largest metropolitan economies, located in 53 countrie ... More >>

Dallas, a Top-Five Exportin' Town

​This morning Pilgrim's Pride announced it'll be exporting chicken to Russia (my favorite Ramones bootleg, incidentally) from its Dallas plant -- good timing too, given that the Brookings Institution just released a report stressing the need for export growth in order to "boost competitiveness." T ... More >>

We Highlighted (Almost) Every Mention of Dallas in State of Metropolitan America Report

​While Andrea was having an inexplicably good time at City Hall -- where, apparently, it's open bar during committee meetings now -- I was been reading the Brookings Institution's The State of Metropolitan America report released yesterday. It's been getting lot of attention, for the most part, be ... More >>

Dallas ISD's Long and Winding Road to Broad Prize Just Hit a Dead End

​Perhaps you've seen the promotional materials -- they've been everywhere during the past five years, as the Dallas Independent School District (and superintendent Michael Hinojosa, especially) eased on down that Road to Broad, so named for the $2 million award given to urban school districts who ... More >>

Look Out: Census Says Everyone's Coming to Dallas (and Fort Worth and Arlington)!

Click to expand the population change map posted by the U.S. Census Bureau today.​The CNN headline, just posted, says it all: "Census Bureau: Dallas posts biggest population gain." That's based on July 1, 2009, population estimates released today, which say that Dallas and Houston gained about 140 ... More >>

Joel Kotkin's Coming to Town to Explain Why We're a "World Capital of the Future"

​Los Angeles-based new geographist Joel Kotkin has long been high on Texas -- and Dallas in particular. Maybe you saw, most recently: Back in September, he included Dallas and Houston on his list of World Capitals of the Future. Among the reasons, "these energy-rich cities have actually added jobs ... More >>

The Man With the Latest Downtown Plan Says We're "A City of Districts" In Need of "Unity"

Daniel Iacofano​Daniel Iacofano -- the "I" in MIG, Inc., which the city hired to develop the latest downtown master plan -- was at the Dallas Convention Center a couple of weeks ago collecting wish-list items from stakeholders and civilians; more than a few Friends of Unfair Park have offered sugg ... More >>

State of the DISD Address, or: You Can't Have the Good Without Some of the Bad

Kimberly ThorpeAt the Belo Mansion this morning, Michael Hinojosa touched on everything from educational gains to the juvenile curfew.​Last time we checked, there wasn't much to laugh about when it came to the state of public education in Dallas. But leave it to Dallas Independent School Distr ... More >>

Dallas-Fort Worth: A Good, Strong Metro

Brookings InstitutionLast night the Brookings Institution released a study tracking recession and recovery in the 100 biggest metro areas in the U.S., and Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington ranks as one of the so-called "strongest 20 metros." Indeed, Texas takes several of the top spots: Austin-Round Rock, ... More >>

According to Brookings Institution, Dallas is the Third "Most Decentralized" City in U.S.

Even as the Dallas City Council considers spending half a million on yet another downtown Dallas master plan, it's worth noting a report released morning by the Brookings Institution that lists Dallas as one of the "Most Decentralized" major cities in the U.S. Which is to say: Sixty-seven percent of ... More >>

The Half Truth and Nothing Like the Truth, So Help Me Tom

Demanding Answers as the Dallas Convention Center Hotel Moves Forward

As Mayor Tom Leppert pushes for a convention center hotel, critics demand more details and less tax money. At least, those who haven't been silenced do.

DowntownDallas Crowd Can't Find the D-Spot

Hunt on Walking in Dallas, Barking Diners and That Whole Foods Fight

Color Bind

Who says the mayor is a racist? You'll be surprised by the answer.

The Learning Curve

Earnest eggheads came to Texas with an idea that for-profit schools can save public education. So far, it ain't working.