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_ The Dallas Morning News Sunday, April 18, 2004 Page 3W A ROAD MAP FOR RENEWAL “A can-do city,” that’s how Dallas loves to see itself — and with good reason. Energy, ambition, vision and hard work have made it the centerpiece of the fastest-growing region in the country. The trouble is, Dallas itself isn’t nearly as healthy as the region. And a lack of self-analysis blinds it to that fact. Story by Victoria Loe Hicks DALLAS That conclusion by the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton rests on a far- reaching statistical comparison of Dal- las and 14 other large U.S. cities. The study, commissioned by The Dallas Morning News, used dozens of measures — from life expectancy to li- brary visits — to produce a comprehen- sive, clear-eyed picture of each city’s performance. Dallas is not in the top tier. Among the 14 peer cities, only three have worse violent crime rates, only four have lower student SAT scores, and none saw less economic expansion in the 1990s. Wrapping together those three mea- sures — identified by Dallas residents as their top concerns — Dallas ranks No. 12 among the 15 cities. Only Rust Belt cities Philadelphia, Baltimore and De- troit perform worse. Moreover, the numbers suggest that Dallas — lulled by past successes, cush- ioned by North Texas’ robust growth, blinded by a lack of self-examination and hobbled by the legacy of racism and neglect — is at a tipping point, where wrong moves could precipitate a pro- tracted slide. Crime and troubled schools send families scurrying for the suburbs; em- ployers follow; the tax base and the city budget shrink; city services decline; the drift to the ’burbs accelerates … … And Dallas’ peril is all the greater, the consultants warned, because a su- perficial appearance of good health masks its symptoms. The city’s malady is much like a “silent” heart attack, which goes undetected until it’s too late for treatment. Faced with Booz Allen’s diagnosis, city leaders fell back on their habitual remedies. Mayor Laura Miller said the report would send her into “despair” — were it not for her certainty that a few big-fix projects, starting with the Trinity River, will affect a dramatic cure. “The Trinity and downtown and Fair Park, that’s the triumvirate that’s going to get us there,” she said. “I think a lot of ills will be solved by those three things happening. We’re going to have interna- tional excitement about the city.” Economists hired by the city were less sanguine. They estimated that, 10 years after completion, the city’s $246 million investment in the Trinity River project would generate real estate, sales and tourism taxes equal to about one- half of 1 percent of the city’s current budget. Booz Allen’s findings prompted oth- er city leaders to lash out at The Dallas Morning News. “All you can do is find fault,” said City Council member Bill Blaydes. “There are tremendous positive things happen- ing in Dallas, Texas, today. “I think that is a piece of junk,” Mr. Blaydes said, pointing to the report. Assistant City Manager Ryan Evans, who oversees economic development, flatly refused to look at numbers indi- cating that retail activity is shifting to the suburbs. He thrust the offending statistics back across the table without glancing at them. He later apologized. A common theme in the city’s re- sponse: Dallas was at a tipping point be- tween decline and renewal not long ago but has since rebounded. “I could assemble all those numbers and get my own doggone numbers and come up saying that we’re doing OK. I think we’ve already turned,” said City Manager Ted Benavides. Ms. Miller’s predecessor, Ron Kirk, said Booz Allen’s work will only compli- cate the leaders’ job, which is to sell the city — if necessary, by drawing attention away from its defects just as a home sell- er does in dealing with potential buyers. “You put vanilla on the light bulb,” he said. Boosterism helped build Dallas and many of its peers, but in 2004, Booz Al- len’s findings suggest, the unexamined city is not worth living in. “This is a critical time in Dallas histo- ry,” said Dr. Robert Fairbanks, who teaches Dallas history at the University of Texas at Arlington. “My perception of Dallas is that it was very successful in one mode of operation that no longer makes sense.” “We don’t measure things,” said Dr. Donald Hicks, a political economist at the University of Texas at Dallas. “We don’t study ourselves.” The city can’t afford to ignore the facts, he said. “No city is guaranteed a future.” The Booz Allen report is not about blame. It is not about the past or the present. It is about the future — how the city’s leaders, inside and outside of City Hall — can help residents create a city that does work, that fulfills their indivi- dual and collective aspirations. “This decline is neither inevitable nor irreversible,” the consultants wrote. A strong dose of basic management principles plus an infusion of political courage “can alter the trajectory and break the cycle.” But to get there, Dallas must start from where it is. And that means recog- nizing where it is. ♦ ♦ ♦ UNLIKE MR. KIRK, DEL BORGS- dorf deals in figures, not flavorings. “Numbers are very important,” said Mr. Borgsdorf, the city manager of San Jose, Calif. When The News began this investi- gation, it polled Dallas residents about what issues matter most to them. Three topped the list: crime, education and economic growth. Booz Allen gathered statistics mea- suring each city’s performance in those areas. The News combined the results into the Quality of Life Index, weighting each item according to its importance to poll respondents. San Jose was No. 1 on crime, No. 1 on schools, No. 1 on economic growth and — naturally — No. 1 overall. San Jose faces two urgent challeng- es. The first is an economy rocked by the dot-com bust. In late 2001, the city hired a top-drawer economic planner from the private sector to spearhead a fine-toothed analysis of its economy. The city is already implementing the re- sulting strategy, just as Dallas embarks on the analytical phase. San Jose’s second weakness is hous- ing prices; a two-bedroom bungalow will fetch $600,000. Even so, the city is desirable enough and wages high enough that home ownership — a good barometer of a community’s stability — runs 20 percentage points ahead of Dal- las’. It doesn’t have to be this way. Dallas is a city with “tremendous natural advantages,” Booz Allen noted: its location, climate, river and huge ur- ban forest. Within its borders are thou- sands of undeveloped acres — room for its population and its economy to grow. The city boasts a strong transporta- tion network of highways, rail lines and one of the world’s great airports. Dallas’ infrastructure — streets, water mains and the like — isn’t decrepit, like some of its older peers’. It doesn’t cost a lot to live here. The city’s economy is diverse, which should make it resilient. The people of Dallas are ambitious and entrepreneurial. The city’s population is growing, in- stead of shrinking like its Northeastern and Midwestern peers. The 1990s brought a tremendous surge of Latino immigrants, who — if they follow the trajectory of earlier immigrant groups — will create prosperity as they seek it. “We still are a good community and a good city,” said former Dallas City Man- ager George Schrader. But in many ways Dallas comes up short. Why? Because short is as short does. That is one of the underlying les- sons of Booz Allen’s analysis. Dallas is shortsighted, devoting little thought and fewer resources to plan- ning for its future. It is short with a dollar, pinching pennies rather than investing systemat- ically to build more livable neighbor- hoods and stimulate its economy. It is short on trust: People don’t trust City Hall, and City Hall doesn’t trust people. It is short on “civic capital” — ener- gized, politically engaged residents and effective mechanisms for collective problem-solving. It is short on leaders who seem able 10 reasons why Dallas is at risk — and doesn’t know it The Booz Allen Hamilton consultants found that North Texas’ tremendous economic strength has masked important warning signs inside the city of Dallas: 1. Job growth and economic growth inside the city are occurring much more slowly than in the region as a whole. 2. Dallas’ unemployment rate has run about 25 percent higher than that of the surrounding metro area. 3. The city fares poorly vs. its urban peers on the quality-of-life indicators that matter most to Dallas residents — crime, education and economic development. 4. Weak performance by the Dallas Independent School District holds down the growth of the well-educated workforce needed to keep an economy humming. 5. Most of Dallas' housing inventory is low- value homes and small apartments, despite the positive image that surrounds the $138,000 median price for home sales. 6. An antiquated City Charter leaves Dallas ill-equipped to respond to its challenges. Alone among its peer cities, Dallas lacks a long-term strategic plan that would help drive progress. 7. A dysfunctional government — and an “anti-business aura’’ — drive businesses to avoid the city and discourages business leaders from civic involvement. 8. Residential property now accounts for more of Dallas’ tax base than commercial property — an imbalance typical of bedroom suburbs, not major cities. 9. Years of under-investment and lack of vision have saddled the city with pending bills for massive long-term liabilities. 10. Other cities have been more purposeful and successful in meeting quality-of-life challenges, putting Dallas at a competitive disadvantage. D allas calls itself “the city that works.” Dallas is wrong. By almost any measure that counts — crime, school quality, economic growth — Dallas looks bad. It’s not that City Hall is lying. City Hall seems not to know. “Dallas does not see itself as a city in crisis. … But the data indicate that Dallas is a city in crisis.” Continued on Page 4W
