Race between San Antonio, Dallas like fabled tortoise and the hare

San Antonio Express News, Wed., Dec. 31, 1997

By Harvey J. Graff

Re: Dec. 3 Mike Greenberg column, "San Antonio outruns Dallas? Just by a hare":

Greenberg is confusing tortoises and hares and, as a consequence, San Antonio and Dallas in his column comparing recent development and policies in the second- and third-largest Texas cities.

Ostensibly, Greenberg writes in response to the U.S. Bureau of the Census report (disputed by Dallas, by the way) that ranks San Antonio ahead of Dallas in population. More seriously, he wants to spur San Antonio development forward by comparing it negatively to Dallas.

In this effort, Greenberg makes several errors and comes to conclusions that are wrong.

First, he draws far too much on Dallas' own pronouncements about its current condition and urban leading edges. It is clear that he is following Dallas' superb public relations machine rather than coming to look at the city itself.

Second, if Greenberg actually examined Dallas firsthand, he would find a far more mixed set of urban indicators across neighborhoods old and new, as well as downtown. He would find, among many other things, the fascinating processes of central city suburbanization and greater urban concentration and urban "problems" in the suburbs.

This is not what he writes about. Nor does he notice the failure of Dallas growth to benefit residents of South and West Dallas.

Third, and more important, he would find a Dallas that looks down at San Antonio as old and dirty and unenlightened economically. All that it wants from San Antonio is to regain its higher ranking in population total and more of its tourist dollars.

Dallas certainly wants none of San Antonio's history or older areas; Dallas has had no interest in preserving its own. When Dallas wants historical veneer, it makes it up.

Now Dallas does envy the River Walk but found its own ideas about building a Boston or Baltimore-like festival waterfront unfeasible. Much like its hope to be a port with navigation to the gulf, there's a certain lack of water.

Fourth, does San Antonio actually want to be more like Dallas? I don't think so, but when I begin to teach urban and social history in San Antonio next year (moving from the University of Texas at Dallas), I'll get a better idea.

What I've seen and heard so far suggests otherwise. And, that leads me to conclude that Dallas is the proverbial hare and San Antonio the tortoise -- a preferable position from which to learn about wise and unwise development and policies today.

In the end, Greenberg errs by drawing much more on general and abstract notions of public policy and urban development and paying too little attention to either Dallas or San Antonio itself.

Harvey J. Graff is a professor of history and humanities at The University of Texas at Dallas in Richardson.