Downtown Dallas As Urban Residential Mecca

"...Lots of cities are trying to piggyback on the nation's new taste for condominiums and urban living. Atlanta, Denver, Los Angeles and others have encouraged developers to recycle old downtown buildings into chic residences while continuing to promote themselves as prime office locations.

But no city comes close to Dallas in residential zeal. Dallas, a city of 1.2 million, has given out some $160 million in grants and tax abatements with the goal of creating a residential haven for those seeking to escape the hundreds of square miles of sprawl that surround it.

...Today, the streets of Dallas's 1.3-square-mile downtown are largely deserted apart from homeless people toting backpacks and commuters darting between their cars and their offices. There are almost no stores, and some 20 vacant high-rises. About 160 acres of surface parking lots sit across downtown, many of them covering the ground where buildings once stood."

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