Dallas

The rise of the city manager form of government during the first progressive era was welcomed as a significant reform and improvement over the often corrupt ward system that dominated beforehand.  read more »

In 1946, the American author John Gunther described Houston as “mostly ugly and barren, without a single good restaurant and hotels with cockroaches”. The only reasons to live in the city, he claimed, were financial; it was a place “where few people think about anything but money”.  read more »

The Texans’ Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), and Australians are constantly being blown away with the growing “nameplate” capacity of wind turbines and solar panels to provide electricity, but electricity from renewables have yet to produce anywhere near their projected capacity due to the intermittency and unreliability of breezes and sunshine.  read more »

From time to time, we hear of the demolition of an historic or architecturally significant home in the news. Inevitably, there’s an outcry. Community leaders agree: “Something must be done!”

But what can be done?  read more »

For decades, Highland Park, a wealthy older suburb two miles from downtown Dallas, homes have been torn down, however, this year this activity has accelerated. Perhaps new residents --- the great influx of home buyers from California to Dallas has exacerbated some problems, with the most troubling being the escalation of Highland Park homes in Dallas being torn down. It is not just the raw numbers of people moving to Dallas. Usually, corporate relocations move hundreds of middle level employees and a few executives.  read more »

Greenlining, designating a neighborhood solely for new and renovated homes, serves as an affordable housing tool and as a neighborhood revitalization tool.  For 35 years, since Eric Moye chaired Mayor Starke Taylor’s Southern Dallas Task Force, the city of Dallas has called for the tax base and desirability of Southern Dallas to become closer to that of Northern Dallas.  read more »

Out on the dusty prairie west of Houston, the construction crews have been busy. Gone are the rice fields, cattle ranches and pine forests that once dominated this part of the South. In their place sit new homes and communities. But they are not an eyesore; the homes are affordable and close to attractive town centres, large parks and lakes. These are communities rooted in the individual, the family and a belief in self-governance.  read more »

It's hardly debatable anymore that the Left is out of control, increasingly influenced and even governed by a radical authoritarian culture that brooks no dissent and over-corrects on all fronts it sets its sights on. You would think this would present a perfect opportunity for Republicans to seize the moment and capture the confidence of moderates and even liberals deeply alienated by this woke authoritarian culture.  read more »

A Maryland circuit court judge >ruled last week that the Baltimore-Washington Rapid Rail Company did not have the >power of eminent domain and could not stop a development on land that the maglev promoter needed to use for its proposed line.  read more »

Redlining and Bluelining Are Detrimental to a Neighborhood, But Bluelining Is Devastating to Low-Income Blacks and Other Groups  read more »