Rant, Rave: A year-end banquet of my two-bit opinions

Dallas Observer | Jim Schutze:

“It is truly disappointing that Mayor Laura Miller continues to push for the Trinity River project, a massive public works campaign to rebuild the Trinity River through downtown Dallas. It's appalling that the old Dallas money establishment insists on seeing this project mainly as a massive multibillion-dollar campaign of public lawn ornamentation. ... The Trinity River is one of nature's time bombs. ... A massive rampage is locked deep inside that pathetic dribble of a stream--a flood that can reach clean across the manmade realm of downtown Dallas and grab out hunks of neighborhoods. It has come before. It will come again. ... This is our own "Katrina" in the making.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

It is curious how little local reflection was prompted by the devastation to New Orleans caused by Hurricane Katrina's storm surge overwhelming the levees. From the publicity about the Trinity River project, the public can be excused for thinking it's all about the "ornamentation" -- the signature bridges, the new freeway, the playgrounds and sports fields. I guess perhaps it is all about the ornamentation -- or, more accurately, the impact such ornamentation will have on nearby land values. It's hard to sell flood control. Even harder to sell a flood plain. If Katrina didn't trigger a reassessment of Dallas' plans for the Trinity, nothing will, at least until the Trinity River's own millennium flood.