Like many of the titles to my posts, this one is a double entendre. Unfortunately, this post is also doubly long.
 
First, cities and towns are evolutionary organisms. Small settlements can grow to be the third and tenth largest cities in the state, as did Dallas and Garland (or eighth and ninetieth in the US). I don't think many would argue yet we have tried nationwide and locally to legislate otherwise. As I have written before, modern suburbs (and core cities) have rules that limit development only to the suburban form. We have restricted development only to uses that are separated (residential over here and retail over there and office down there and industrial somewhere else), then sprawled those across the landscape, and dictated that they be accessible only by car. The restrictions arrest evolution. Every so often cities will reconsider if they've "properly" restricted development and make some revisions to their rules. The result of this modern planning has been neighborhoods that can only decline over time, shopping centers that go from vibrant to deserted, and open fields that are transformed into parking lots.
 
Over the same period, we've come to know fewer and fewer of our neighbors, we spend more and more time in traffic congestion, the return on our housing investment is continually under threat, and the family front door has too often been superseded by a minivan sliding door held by the designated family chauffeur.
 
This anti-evolutionary — and counter intuitive — planning and development model is under siege in pockets across the country. The move in small areas and in some cities from use-based zoning codes to form-based codes recognizes that we need to allow evolution. The move could be called a re-urbanization in many cases. It is more important to regulate the quality of development than legislating each and every use. That rings of free enterprise and free choice, while taking reasonable precautions to avoid abuses. The SmartCode, a model form-based code, anticipates that zoning districts (actually called transects in the code) will evolve over time. Allowing that evolution is a simple process.
 
As implied in the title, there isn't an exact boundary between what is best and what is worst. Different parts of the country and even different parts of a city should be allowed to evolve differently. Not everything needs to be homogenized and pasteurized. It shouldn't be black and white — there should be plenty of room for gray.
 

A cold evening on a park-facing street at Orenco Station, a traditional neighborhood development in the Portland suburb of Hillsboro and built near the Portland-area light rail system

 
Second, a recent Dallas Morning News article caught my attention because it implied (very nearly stated) that modern re-urbanization is literally a black and white issue (as in black people and white people). In "Portland, America's ultimate White City," Aaron Renn writes, "...there's a generally standing answer to the question of what cities are the best." He cites Portland, Seattle, Austin, Minneapolis, and Denver, adding, "Portland is held up as a paradigm, with its urban growth boundary, extensive transit system, excellent cycling culture and a pro-density policy." He contrasts those cities with the older cities of the Rust Belt and the South. Rather than note the age differences, the historical ethnic migrations, and his own tortured assumptions, he sees the difference being the percent of African-Americans within the two groups of cities.
 
Then he rhetorically quizzes himself: "Why is it that progressive urban policy in smaller metros is so often associated with low numbers of African-Americans? Can a city be properly called progressive with only a disproportionate handful of African-Americans in it? In addition, why has no one called these cities on it?"
 
He continues and infers that whites, to escape blacks, have subtly moved to these "progressive" cities rather than blatantly move to the suburbs. In truth, he could have looked at the percentages of Jews or Roman Catholics instead of blacks and not gotten that much of a different answer.
 
Renn asks, "[H]ow can a city define itself as diverse or progressive while lacking in African-Americans, the traditional sine qua non of diversity, and often in immigrants as well?" He uses African-Americans as his token poor as he uses Portland as his token progressive city, but he actually asserts the case more broadly: "Just like African-Americans, Latino immigrants also are disproportionately poor and often have different site priorities and sensibilities than upscale whites."
 
Even though he acknowledges historic migration, he doesn't seem to recognize that the differences in populations in these cities are result of major migrations early in the twentieth century. Many moved north from the south to escape poverty. Other immigrant groups moved to the northern cities, with the Irish and Italians coming early to the northeast and the Scandinavians and Germans coming to the midwest and then the northwest. The Polish settled in the middle. Even these general statements are amazingly broad. In Texas, there are still many communities that are strongly flavored with Czech or German or Polish or Mexican or African American descendants.
 
He is probably correct when he asserts, "Lack of diversity in culture makes it far easier to implement 'progressive' policies that cater to populations with similar values," but I personally suspect he draws the wrong lines as to which groups hold "similar values."
 
He doesn't acknowledge the cities that are dramatic contradictions to his observations. One example, Atlanta, has had only black mayors since 1974 yet there have been dramatic changes in the Atlanta area toward the same "progressive" changes Renn lists. Those changes have been successful enough to attract a migratory influx that includes a very high percentage of whites, the antithesis of his observations.
 
New Orleans has historically had a diverse population and blacks have been a large percent. For many decades, the city had model transportation, attracted tourists from across the globe to experience its pedestrian streets, and housed a high percentage of poor. Even post-Katrina, those elements are being preserved and further cloned, yet those elements are the same "progressive" elements that Portland and other cities have chosen to pursue, not the reverse.
 
Another example, Miami, has just made the most dramatic change to its zoning and development ordinances of any city in American history. Those changes are the ultimate embodiment of the "progressive" changes that Renn observes. Yet Miami is highly Hispanic. The mayor of Miami that personally championed these changes is Hispanic. The principles enumerated and promoted and now codified are the lifelong efforts of architect Andrés Duany, a Cuban immigrant. His family fled the Castro revolution. The principles of urban planning he advocates are Havana — and Paris and Prague and London and Vienna. Simply, those cities that were designed for humans, not cars.
 
The contrasts that Renn notes are there but I think he misses the reasons and the counter examples. It's not a black and white issue in any respect. Returning cities and suburbs to the humans is for all people. There are sensitivities of affordability and gentrification that must be considered so that change won't be used to camouflage other agendas but that is constantly considered and I've not seen any such negative efforts by the leaders of re-urbanization.
 
Measuring cities by their ethic proportions and advocating homogenization across all cities isn't any answer. Judging that a minority group and a conservative group working in concert will stop progress, as he says about a street car system in Cincinnati, ignores whether the system is actually a benefit for the city and can be delivered at a fair price. Public skepticism of government projects (remember who is actually paying) is healthy, not objectionable. If the case cannot be made to justify the improvement, then it probably doesn't justify the expense no matter how "progressive" and trendy it might sound. Dallas has been looking at a street car system for eight years, which I suspect will eventually receive great community support and Dallas has lots of diverse ethnic groups, as Renn acknowledges.
 
While I think Renn got his contacts in backwards on this one (and no he is not black), he does have a positive record of observing the trends we need to address if we are to challenge the negative effects of sprawl that are draining our cities and suburbs. He blogs at urbanophile.com. You can't help but see Dallas similarly to his perspective, looking no further than his one visit.
 
Frankly, I don't know why the Dallas Morning News even ran this story.