In Praise of Dallas, Where Resistance is Futile and Synthetic Isn’t a Pejorative

Over on Living Car-Free in Big D, Patrick Kennedy directs our attention to an essay by Russ Sikes, a board member of the North Texas Chapter of the Congress of New Urbanism. The title: “Dallas: Syn City,” as in “synthetic.” Which, Sikes insists, isn’t as bad as it sounds, especially to those who ain’t from ’round these parts:

For its millions of newcomers, the Dallas experience is about transformation. It’s often why we came and what we seek. Our lack of long tethers here can leave an impression of shallowness, but it also leavens our possibilities. Artifice, contrivance and guile, ugly themselves, are perhaps inevitable handmaidens to the restless energy and aspiration that fuel them. It is unsurprising that their stark features shape the bland face of a region like ours, many of whose inhabitants are so newly-arrived, striving en masse to forge new lives.