Connie Gonzalez’s neighborhood has one general store, but her family can’t walk there because it’s too dangerous without sidewalks.

Gonzalez, who has lived in West Dallas for 40 years, said cars regularly drive into the ditches on the side of the street in front of her house, and drivers who park there often leave trash. She’s told city officials about the littering, but she says they’ve responded that it’s not their property to maintain.

“Cars park on the side [of the street] and obstruct the view,” making it hazardous for pedestrians and other drivers, she said. “My kids can’t even ride their bikes out.”

An SMU study recently determined that Gonzalez’s neighborhood is among 62 “infrastructure deserts” in Dallas: The areas’ small-scale structures and facilities of support — sidewalks, crosswalks, public transportation access — are highly deficient.

These infrastructure deserts are concentrated in southern Dallas, home to many Black and Hispanic residents, according to the study. Even in high-income Black neighborhoods, there was worse infrastructure than in white neighborhoods or neighborhoods with no predominant race, the study found.

Whether they live in high- or low-income neighborhoods, all of Dallas’ residents should pay attention to this neglect, said Barbara Minsker, the lead investigator and Bobby B. Lyle Endowed Professor of Leadership and Global Entrepreneurship at SMU.

When the city government fixes infrastructure inequality and addresses the issues that stem from that inequity — such as health and safety concerns — the upfront cost could cause higher taxes for all depending on where the money is coming from, she said. But Minsker said in the long term, there could be lower taxes once these issues have been addressed.

Minsker and her research team examined nearly 800 neighborhoods and rated them excellent, good, moderate, deficient or highly deficient based on 12 types of neighborhood infrastructure. These criteria, like access to medical services and community gathering spaces, contribute to livable, economically viable neighborhoods.

Low-income communities are up to four times more likely to have highly deficient infrastructure than their high-income counterparts, the study found.

Some information used for the SMU study was already publicly available. But the SMU researchers also used aerial imaging to detect crosswalks and Google Street View images for noise walls.

The same research was conducted for New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles. Compared to those cities, Dallas had the worst infrastructure conditions and the most inequity, Minsker said. The study’s findings of racial inequity are a result of redlining and highway projects in the city that broke up Black and brown neighborhoods, among other factors, she said.

“There’s never the resources or catch-up for these areas that have much worse infrastructure and have kind of been written off,” Minsker said. “We have a history of racially motivated policies, and the legacy of that is still there.”

Residents living in these neighborhoods have long known of the problems their communities face and say there hasn’t been much assistance to improve their access to quality infrastructure. However, they’re working with one another to find solutions, while calling on the city to do more.

Southern Dallas

James McGee, the president and board chair of Southern Dallas Progress, said the issues with infrastructure that Southern Dallas faces are “supremely frustrating.”

While it’s only a 10-minute drive by car from downtown to parts of southern Dallas, it takes about an hour by public transit. Internet companies, meanwhile, underinvest in the neighborhood, resulting in poor internet access, or “digital redlining,” McGee said.

Parts of southern Dallas also look different from the urban city, with uneven pavement, broken fences and no sidewalks. Open lots overgrown with brush are often filled with trash and abandoned equipment.

“It’s been a dumping ground for years,” McGee said. “If you don’t have infrastructure, no one cares.”

McGee said it would be expensive to install sidewalks in Southern Dallas -– District 8, for example, is missing 246 miles of sidewalks and the estimated cost to build curb ramps for accessibility is nearly $2 million, according to the city’s Sidewalk Master Plan Final Report, completed in June 2021.

“They may announce there’s $50 million, for example, for an infrastructure improvement, but what’s the total needed?” he said. “$50 million is a big number, but it’s minute in the size of what’s actually needed.”

McGee said the goal for southern Dallas is to work toward revitalization, not gentrification. “Residents want better, but unfortunately they’re kind of used to it,” he said. “Some of them have been complaining for 30 years and much hasn’t changed.”

Jubilee Park

Mark Mullaney, the chief operating officer of Jubilee Park and Community Center, said the SMU research matches what he and other community residents have experienced.

Minsker shared the findings of the study with the Jubilee neighborhood in southeast Dallas, and Mullaney and Minsker walked around in the southern portion of the neighborhood together. “It helps make the case for why an investment in this … will make life better for residents,” Mullaney said. “It’ll be helpful for talking to investors and potentially grant opportunities.”

Jubilee Park as a defined neighborhood is 62 blocks, divided along East Grand Avenue. Mullaney said the southern part of the neighborhood looks much different from the northern part. In the northern part of Jubilee, near the community center, there are paved sidewalks, well-maintained fences and tree canopies.

But just about five blocks south from the community center, there are no sidewalks. The streets are difficult to cross and navigate, especially for people without cars. Bus stops have no benches or shade. They’re just signs, with one on the median in the middle of the street, directly in the sunlight.

The southern part of the neighborhood has private apartment complexes called the Yellow Brick Duplexes, which have no sidewalks, poorly paved streets and no tree cover. Mullaney noted the irony of the houses having a direct view of Fair Park, which he said was “a striking difference.”

Mullaney said Jubilee Park is currently working on new developments in the southern portion of their neighborhood and will potentially build multifamily and senior affordable homes, and a small resource center that will be accessible for pedestrians.

Jubilee Park is planning to work with Southern Dallas Progress to take surveys of vacant lots in the area and determine the best use for them. Mullaney said Jubilee wants to find ways to provide low- to moderate-income housing.

“The future is mixed income,” Mullaney said. “How do we do that in a way that doesn’t push out community members?”

West Dallas

Debbie Solis, a lifelong resident of West Dallas, said although the city council in Dallas is the “best there’s been,” the study’s findings are the result of years of redlining and lack of resources for minority, low-income neighborhoods.

Predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods are up to three times more likely than white neighborhoods to have highly deficient infrastructure, while Black neighborhoods are up to five times more likely.

Previous City Council members from northern Dallas didn’t walk “the streets of South Dallas or West Dallas,” Solis said. “They didn’t see the injustice that was going on out here. And if they did, they were blind to it.”

She said West Dallas suffers from a lack of access to public transportation, internet and quality grocery stores.

Solis said her neighborhood was annexed to the city in the 1950s, and they did not receive paved streets unless residents paid for them. Plumbing came late to West Dallas — she used an outhouse until the 1960s.

Solis said if the city wants to solve these complicated problems, they must work with the county and stop gentrifying the area.

“We have to have people that are making decisions that care and want to help people that have been here for generations,” she said. “Look at Little Mexico. It’s gone. That’s what’s going to happen here if we don’t stop it in West Dallas.”