A Better Food Block, Downtown Dallas

“A living charrette”

Jay Blazek Crossley, Nov 08, 10.

In an ongoing process to imagine the possibilities to improve the quality of life in Dallas, the Better Block Project held its first “Better Food Block” in Downtown Dallas on November 1, 2010, according to the Better Block Project and Walkable DFW.

While Walkable DFW notes ways that the project could have more completely transformed the Deep Ellum district into a connected network of complete streets, they explain how the act of temporary urbanism can help develop long term quality of life improvements for Dallas:

The common emotion of suburban style development is one of fear, of retrenchment, backing away from any form of engagement with anyone else, the bad scary ‘other’. The emotion behind the Better Block is one of love, of re-engagement, of curiosity of what others are up to, and wanting to meet and be around other people.

But the emotion that has made the Better Block so successful is brazenness. Where bureaucracy, political timidity, or ineptitude all too often prevent places for people, the Better Block just did it, inspired by an outgrowth of frustration with all of the above.

The City often gripes about development projects not being urban enough, but they are products of the transportation system that the development interfaces with. High speed roads beget development that backs away, that attempts to buffer itself from metal moving at deadly speeds. Make more walkable streets, get more walkable developments. Deep Ellum still has a good bit of walkable urban fabric, but it will never be successful as long as it has unwalkable streets slicing through it.

Billy Joel was inspired by this video about an earlier iteration of the Dallas Better Block project to conduct a similar exercise where he lives in the Town of Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York, according to the Dallas Observer Blog:

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