As Dallas works to overhaul its urban planning rules for the first time in decades, hundreds of housing advocates, developers and curious residents gathered at the Life In Deep Ellum cultural center Thursday evening.
They were there to learn more about how the city’s neighborhoods — especially those marred by past policy decisions — became what they are today, and how the city’s housing decisions could change them.
“Having access to history and historical narratives can help them actually do their work,” said historian Jerry L. Hawkins, who moderated the conversation.
The event was put on by the Dallas Housing Coalition, a large group of nonprofits advocating for affordable and attainable housing. Organizers premiered a documentary trailer and announced the group’s new zoning reform campaign. Visitors perused a timeline of the city’s housing and zoning history that lined the room and flipped through Hawkins’ new zine, the “People’s Guide to Dallas’ Housing History.”
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The booklet describes Dallas’ history of gentrification, segregation, redlining, destructive highways, and other policy choices impacting freedman’s towns, cultural enclaves like Little Mexico and areas south of Interstate 30, which are predominantly Black and Hispanic.
The conversation comes as Dallas County has seen its population decline despite North Texas’ rapid growth, much of it to the north. At the same time, the city is going through zoning reform for the first time in decades amid a housing affordability crunch, updating outdated rules that shape the city with hopes of generating growth.
“We know that before we can change our future, create a more equitable one, we have to understand our past,” Bryan Tony, the coalition’s executive director, said of the exhibit.
Across Dallas, reform and zoning changes come after the City Council’s passage of ForwardDallas 2.0 in 2024, a long-term vision for Dallas’ land use over the coming decades that involved months of debate between single-family homeowners and housing advocates.
The Dallas Housing Coalition says the city needs to allow for thousands more homes — and a variety of housing types such as apartments or duplexes — to better serve residents. It’s hoping to get residents involved in the zoning process.
In South Dallas, where advocates are aiming to manage needed growth, more than 3,300 acres were rezoned to include design standards and map out where development fits.
Around Joppa in southeast Dallas, where past decisions have resulted in residents living alongside industrial facilities, community meetings are underway to consider what those sites become when a company leaves.
In West Dallas, residents along Singleton Boulevard are going through the rezoning process after having long pushed to reduce industrial sites in their neighborhood.
Laura Beshara, a longtime civil rights attorney who has taken on a number of housing policy issues, said current concerns are a “relic of official segregation” that must change.
“Zoning is critical because it decides how protected your home is from adverse influences such as heavy industry,” Beshara said during a panel Thursday, adding that residential zoning comes with protections that can impact health and determine how much equity homeowners have.
Roshunda Campbell, who lives in Oak Cliff, was one of the visitors exploring the exhibit showing Dallas’ housing history. At 58, Campbell said she’s learning stories her parents didn’t teach her. Her daughter, who writes about Black history, brought her to the gathering.
Campbell noted the Tenth Street Historic District, where Interstate 35E sliced through the heart of a freedman’s town in the ‘50s. This once-bustling neighborhood has seen its historic structures shrink as the city works to make housing and infrastructure repairs. Nearby, the new multimillion-dollar Halperin Park stretches across the highway as a means to mend past harms and bridge communities, but some neighbors have concerns about gentrification.
“I’m hopeful that we bring more affordable housing, for us, but for the next generation,” Campbell said. “It’s very important to know our rich history because when you know the history, you don’t repeat it.”
This reporting is part of the Future of North Texas, a community-funded journalism initiative supported by the Commit Partnership, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Lisa and Charles Siegel, the McCune-Losinger Family Fund, The Meadows Foundation, the Perot Foundation, the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and the University of Texas at Dallas. The News retains full editorial control of this coverage.