KATIE KRUPALA
The Evolution of Uneven Development
in Dallas, TX
Katie Krupala
Abstract:
Dallas has a long history of uneven development.
It is the product of excess capital, white planning, and
a desire to shape the land into something it is not.
Communities in Dallas broke sharply along racial
and class lines, and as a result black and white Dallas
developed separately. Forces of structural and physical
violence largely determined where African American
neighborhoods were, and are, located in Dallas. African
American, Mexican American, and other low-income
communities suffered not only from low housing avail-
ability and high rent prices, but also bombings, arson,
and other physical threats. When alliances formed
between poor whites and their neighbors of color, the
construction of a highway or railroad was apt to split a
neighborhood and fracture the community. The effects
of segregation and discrimination have followed the
African American communities in Dallas since their
inception. Space for African Americans, who made
up almost twenty percent of the population, within
the Dallas city limits continued to shrink. In 1940,
African American neighborhoods were squeezed into
3.5 square miles within the City and in small com-
munities along the perimeter. Meanwhile, the wealthy
sequestered themselves into enclaves within the city,
avoiding both minorities and municipal taxes while
benefitting from city services. In this paper I explore
how this historical discrimination and segregation
shaped geographic inequality across Dallas today.
Much of the wealth in Dallas is clustered in the north
around the Park Cities enclave as illustrated by viewing
the property tax values over the city. Low-income,
majority African American neighborhoods like Joppa,
located in southern Dallas, illustrate the impacts that
Volume 12, Number 3 2019
Department of Geography
The Ohio State University
the flows of capital have on livelihoods. South Dallas
experienced a sharp decrease in population as residents
moved to the suburbs in the 1960s and has since been
underdeveloped. Joppa, a small, historically neglected,
neighborhood has remained isolated until recently.
Developers are interested in Joppa for its cheap, empty
lots, and valuable proximity to booming downtown
Dallas and the Trinity River Corridor. Gentrification
is a concern for the neighborhood; residents have a
desire to revitalize their neighborhood on their own
terms, not developers’. This research will help to
visualize and amplify the continued material effects of
a history Dallas is trying to make invisible.
Keywords: uneven development, green revitalization,
segregation, white supremacy, Dallas
Título: La evolución del desarrollo desigual en
Dallas, TX
Resumen
Dallas tiene una larga historia de desarrollo desigual.
Es el producto del exceso de capital, la planificación
blanca y el deseo de dar forma a la tierra en algo que
no es. Las comunidades en Dallas se rompieron brus-
camente en líneas raciales y de clase, y como resultado,
Dallas blanco y Dallas negro se desarrollaron por
separado. Las fuerzas de violencia estructural y física
determinaron en gran medida dónde estaban, y están
ubicados, los vecindarios afroamericanos en Dallas.
Las comunidades afroamericanas, mexicoamericanas y
otras de bajos ingresos sufrieron no solo por la baja dis-
ponibilidad de viviendas y los altos precios de alquiler,
sino también por los bombardeos, incendios provo-
cados y otras amenazas físicas. Cuando se formaron
17
THE EVOLUTION OF UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT IN DALLAS, TX
alianzas entre blancos pobres y sus vecinos de color, la
construcción de una carretera o ferrocarril fue capaz
de dividir un vecindario y fracturar la comunidad.
Los efectos de la segregación y la discriminación han
seguido a las comunidades afroamericanas en Dallas
desde su creación. El espacio para los afroamericanos,
que constituían casi el veinte por ciento de la población,
dentro de los límites de la ciudad de Dallas continuó
disminuyendo. En 1940, los barrios afroamericanos
se comprimieron en 3.5 millas cuadradas dentro de
la ciudad y en pequeñas comunidades a lo largo del
perímetro. Mientras tanto, los ricos se secuestraron en
enclaves dentro de la ciudad, evitando las minorías y
los impuestos municipales mientras se beneficiaban
de los servicios de la ciudad. En este artículo exploro
cómo esta discriminación y segregación histórica dio
forma a la desigualdad geográfica en Dallas hoy. Gran
parte de la riqueza en Dallas está agrupada en el norte
alrededor del enclave de Park Cities, como se ilustra al
ver los valores de los impuestos a la propiedad sobre la
ciudad. Los barrios afroamericanos de bajos ingresos
y mayoría como Joppa, ubicados en el sur de Dallas,
ilustran los impactos que los flujos de capital tienen en
los medios de vida. El sur de Dallas experimentó una
fuerte disminución de la población a medida que los
residentes se mudaron a los suburbios en la década de
1960 y desde entonces se ha subdesarrollado. Joppa,
un barrio pequeño, históricamente descuidado, ha
permanecido aislado hasta hace poco. Los desarrolla-
dores están interesados en Joppa por sus lotes baratos,
vacíos y su valiosa proximidad al floreciente centro de
Dallas y el Corredor del Río Trinity. La gentrificación
es una preocupación para el vecindario; los residen-
tes desean revitalizar su vecindario en sus propios
términos, no los desarrolladores. Esta investigación
ayudará a visualizar y amplificar los efectos materiales
continuos de una historia que Dallas está tratando de
hacer invisible.
Palabras clave: desarrollo desigual, revitalización
verde, segregación, supremacía blanca, Dallas.
Spaces for Capital, Spaces for People
Only minutes away from the colossal hotels, banks,
and skyscrapers of downtown Dallas’ central business
district is the small neighborhood of Joppa. With its
18 Human Geography
abundant empty lots, overgrown with uncut grass and
vine-laced trees, Joppa could be mistaken for a rural
community. Several unpaved streets, the absence of
streetlights and sidewalks, and the occasional grazing
horse add to the rustic atmosphere. While residents
are proud of their legacy as a historic freedman’s town
and wish to maintain the character of their neighbor-
hood, the systemic and intentional underdevelopment
of the area has plagued Joppa for decades.
This paper examines the history of the organiza-
tion of Dallas through both elite influence and the
influence of the market. I ask: How has historic racial
and economic segregation shaped inequality in Dallas
today? What role does development continue to play
in segregation half a century after its legal abolition?
I argue that the case study of Joppa can highlight the
continued injustices faced by minority communi-
ties, and point to the city government as aiding and
abetting injustice.
It is always necessary to question for whom
development serves, as it is a term that can appear
innocuous while obscuring its true impacts. Develop-
ment that entrenches inequality or reproduces the
current systems’ problems is a wasted effort. Therefore,
in order to move forward in developing a more
egalitarian city that is designed to meet the needs of its
residents and the environment, the current processes
of development must be deconstructed. In this paper
I visualize and amplify the continued effects of the
racist history Dallas would like to forget.
Like in many cities in the United States, in Dallas
race and class are deeply intertwined, and neighbor-
hoods are defined closely based on these categories
(Phillips 2006, Rothstein 2017). This research uses
the particular geographic history of race in Dallas,
along with Pulido’s concepts of racial capitalism
(2017) and white supremacy (2015) to contextual-
ize the current disparity between wealthy, usually
white, and poor, usually black, neighborhoods. While
neoliberal capitalism presents itself as a neutral actor,
the state, which sanctions and facilitates capital
movement and accumulation, is not. The state aids
in the production and reinforcement of social differ-
ence through “geographic management” (McKittrick

2011, p. 953). Simultaneously, capitalism must
produce difference somewhere. Racial difference is
preyed upon and used to the advantage of industry.
Hazardous industries and other undesirable environ-
ments can be hoisted upon minority communities
smoothly due to the devaluation of non-white bodies
(Pulido 2015). White supremacy reinforces the state
as it sanctions this violence (Pulido 2017, 2015). In
Dallas, whiteness “required a steadfast belief in racial
differences, support for capitalism, faith in rule by
the wealthy,” (Phillips 2006: 12) and a belief that
competition and inequality were natural occurrences.
This construction of whiteness contrasts with many
Dallasites’ vision of non-white: socialist, communal,
savage, and irresponsible (Phillips 2006:12). These
beliefs, steeped in white supremacy, were the basis for
social, and geographical, organization in the city.
I also use the theoretical lenses of Neil Smith’s
uneven development (2008), David Harvey’s analysis
of the urban process under capitalism (1978), and
Harvey’s “entrepreneurial city” (1989) to analyze
disparity within Dallas and the processes that
reproduce and obscure the systems that sustain it.
Uneven development (Smith 2008) describes
the way capital moves within and through the City,
offering an explanation for the drastic disparity found
between neighborhoods. The mobility of capital
fosters development in profitable areas and thus
underdevelopment in areas with a low rate of profit
(Smith 2008). As capital “see-saws” between develop-
ment and underdevelopment, it transforms the urban
landscape for its own purposes, which does not neces-
sarily serve the residents of that space (Harvey 1978).
Harvey’s “entrepreneurial city” helps to explain the
City of Dallas’ role in fostering the very growth and
development that entrenches inequality within the
city limits. With the rise of neoliberalism, cities have
become what Harvey (1989) called “entrepreneurial,”
in that they behave more like corporations and less
like a managerial government. In order to become
more appealing to business, city governments provide
incentives for companies to relocate to the area, even
at the cost of public services. Dallas plans to lure
capital and new residents via green revitalization. The
Volume 12, Number 3 2019
KATIE KRUPALA
Trinity River Corridor Project is a green revitalization
scheme characteristic of entrepreneurial cities. In the
case of Dallas, it masks the root causes of disparity and
injustice while providing ineffective, easy-to-swallow
solutions, like a new park or wetland observatory.
I used both quantitative and qualitative methods
to explore the legacy of uneven development in Dallas.
I use three types of data to illustrate inequality across
the City of Dallas: the Median Household Income, the
Property Tax Base per acre at the District level, and the
New Construction Values also at the District Level.
These three measures show three different spheres of
development: the income a family or household is
taking in, the value of the land beneath their feet, and
the amount of new development, of growth in their
district, respectively.
Granular data of this level will help to visualize the
continued material effects of a history Dallas is trying
to make invisible through apolitical revitalization.
The historically black, low-income, neighborhood of
Joppa illustrates the continued economic disparity,
discrimination, and injustice faced by black commu-
nities to this day. A case study of this neighborhood
grounds and supplements the quantitative illustration
provided through the Median Income, Property Tax
Base, and New Construction Value maps in reality.
There are three types of data I drew from and
analyzed to better understand the extent of inequality
within the City. First, I created a dataset, which shows
the Property Tax Base in dollars per acre for each of
the 14 City Council Districts. This information was
not available at the zip-code level, and likewise income
data was not available at the City Council District
level, which is the reason for the split in resolution. I
organized the Property Tax Base data with a Quartile
Break with six classes. This information was then
displayed on the map (Figure 3) so that the spatial
patterns of property values could be seen. Finally, I
repeated this process using the New Construction
Value Data also in dollars per acre. This data was also
organized using a Quartile Break with six classes,
so that the maps could be easily viewed together
(Figure 4). Both the Property Tax Base data and the
New Construction Value data were taken from the
19
THE EVOLUTION OF UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT IN DALLAS, TX
2017 Council District Economic Fact Sheet available
for each City Council District on their respective
webpages (Council District Fact Sheet 2017). Dis-
playing the data over a map of the Districts in Dallas
shows the clear clustering of wealth and development
in the Northeast and Downtown, while much of the
South, West, and South-central regions are shown to
be underdeveloped in comparison. While this type
of information is useful for visualization, it cannot
capture an acute understanding of the circumstance
of the disparate development.
I deepen the story of uneven development through
a case study of an “underdeveloped” neighborhood in
the southern part of Dallas: Joppa, a small, isolated
community on the south of Trinity River. Surrounded
by the Lower Chain of Wetlands, the Great Trinity
Forest, and the educational Audubon Center, the
City plans to “revitalize” Joppa through eco-tourism.
I attended community meetings hosted at the Shady
Grove Primitive Baptist Church by the South Central
Civic League for seven months from April 2018- May
2019. At the meetings I took notes on the topics on
the agenda, and gathered background knowledge
about the issues Joppa faces, from the perspective of
the residents in attendance. Not all residents attend
the meetings, but they are open to the public. I also
conducted semi-structured interviews with leadership
of the Civic League and longtime residents. A deeper
understanding of this location binds the quantitative
data to the struggle of daily life. It offers a personal
look into livelihood caged by “underdevelopment,”
to livelihood threatened by the predatory nature of
capital as it calculates the value of your living space
and pits it against the value of your labor. I argue the
personal must be brought to the forefront of conversa-
tions of uneven development.
The following section provides a historical back-
ground of racial tensions and development within
Dallas, followed by a closer look at Joppa in the case
study section. Finally, I present my findings and explore
the connection between income disparity within Dallas
and its segregated past. Current development is also
explored; as the city becomes more entrepreneurial,
its efforts are aimed at attracting and retaining capital
while social services wither away (Harvey 1989). In
20 Human Geography
Joppa, the poor lack representation and respect from
the city, making basic services even more difficult to
attain. Meanwhile, the City continues to roll out the
red carpet for investors and developers and roll social
and environmental issues into the interests of capital.
A Brief History of Development in Dallas
Omnipresent overt and structural racism, inter-
twined with the flows of capital, have shaped many
cities in the United States (Rothstein 2017) and
Dallas is no exception. In a blend of Marxist analysis
and spatial awareness, uneven development considers
the “historically specific and contingent processes”
(Smith 2008: 2) that shape society, while maintain-
ing that space is more than a backdrop. Instead, the
restructuring of space plays an active role in reproduc-
ing disparity, in aiding the persistence of capitalism.
Communities in Dallas broke sharply along racial
and class lines, and as a result black and white Dallas
developed separately. Forces of structural and personal
violence largely determined where African American
neighborhoods were located in Dallas. Segregation and
low wages limited housing options for both African
Americans and poor whites. Laura Pulido’s (2015) take
on white supremacy is fundamental for the historic
and continued disparity Dallas is experiencing. Often
overlooked for the more overt forms of racism, white
supremacy runs through the economic, social, and
political processes that shape the city (Pulido 2015).
From the historic bombings and arson attacks of the
mid 20th century to the continued neglect of black
neighborhoods, white supremacy is the undercurrent
that guides power and capital.
The state, or in this case the city, facilitated the
underdevelopment of minority neighborhoods
through the process of zoning. Certain zoning laws
clustered landfills, liquor stores, and industrial activity
in disenfranchised communities (“Texas Adopts”
1928, Phillips 2006). Basic services such as “modern
plumbing, electricity, and trash collection” (Phillips
2006: 64, “To Study” 1915) were limited in these
neighborhoods. A 1916 Dallas law, later overturned
by the Texas Supreme Court, even enforced racial
housing segregation. However, the segregation of

neighborhoods was maintained through a new law
requiring three quarters of a neighborhood to agree to
change a neighborhood’s racial category.
Figure 1: Redlining in Dallas 1937 created by the Federal
Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (Home Owners’)
If African American families began moving into
an all-white neighborhood, they were met with
“bombing and burning” of their homes (Phillips
2006: 64). In many cases the police stood idly by
while white mobs carried out their terror (Rothstein
2017). White families were reinforcing the status quo
and fighting to maintain their place on the top of the
social hierarchy. In the brief time that the 1916 law
was upheld, the ink-drawn lines sunk deep into the
landscape, reinforcing the racist social atmosphere that
drew them in the first place. Figure 1 shows a map of
redlining in Dallas from 1937. The map was created
Volume 12, Number 3 2019
KATIE KRUPALA
by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation to carve up
the city based on the riskiness for mortgage loans,
which were determined by the racial demographics of
the neighborhood. Green is considered “best,” blue is
“still desirable,” yellow is “definitely declining,” and
red is “hazardous.” North Dallas is clearly shown in
blue and green, while downtown and southern Dallas
are considered “hazardous.” Compare with Figure 2,
which shows the 2016 Property Tax Base in Dallas, a
good reflection of economic development. Green and
blue neighborhoods still boast the highest tax bases,
while yellow and red spaces are ranked lowest.
Within the urban realm there are distinct spaces
of capital accumulation and its twin, underdevelop-
ment (Smith 2008). The historical conditions of
urban development, such as the political decision of
where to place a highway or toll road, places a finger
on the scale in favor of capital. Minority communi-
ties were often the chosen sites of socially fracturing
infrastructure; the elites who swayed Dallas policy and
investment protected their own spaces, maintaining
white supremacy (Pulido 2015). A portion of the elite
sequestered themselves into enclaves in north Dallas,
Highland Park and University Park, also known
as the Park Cities. In a predatory move the wealthy
population of Highland Park incorporated into Dallas
as a separate town in order to sequester their taxes.
Meanwhile, the City provided these enclaves with
services like water at much cheaper rates than the
rest of Dallas proper, and so the Park Cities sucked
resources from the larger population and withheld
their profits from redistribution (Phillips 2006; Payne
2000). Today these enclaves boast median property
values in the millions, compared to the City of Dallas,
with a median property value just under $200,000
(DataUSA).
The effects of segregation and discrimination have
followed the African American communities in Dallas
since their inception. In the 1920s much of the rental
housing available for African Americans was “unfit for
human habitation,” lacking indoors plumbing and
access to water (Phillips 2006: 110). Space for African
Americans, who made up almost twenty percent of the
population, within the Dallas city limits continued to
shrink. In 1940, African American neighborhoods
21
THE EVOLUTION OF UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT IN DALLAS, TX
were squeezed into just 3.5 square miles within the
City and in small communities along the perimeter
(Phillips 2006:120). Many settled on the land near
the Trinity River, viewed by others as “worthless
floodplain.” Fires and other thinly veiled threats,
such as “hanging effigies,” continued to greet African
Americans who tried to move out of their socially
designated spaces (“Bomb blasts” 1940). The City
Council was not only complicit in these actions, but
also acted as an accomplice to them as they never in-
vestigated these crimes of terror (Phillips 2006: 120).
Bombings of African American homes continued into
the 1950s (“New Negro Home” 1951, “2nd Attempt”
1957). In addition to this violence, African American
and other non-white or low-income communities
suffered from low housing availability and high rent
prices (Landrum 1947). These populations continued
to reside in the floodplains of the Trinity, in what is
now West and South Dallas. Immigrants from the
Middle East and Asia had the opportunity to move to
neighborhoods with better housing and schools given
they “surrender” their ethnic identity and “accepted
white supremacy” (Phillips 2006: 11). By conforming
to the dominant status quo, these groups could skirt
diseases such as typhus, tuberculosis, and polio which
were found in neighborhoods with poor living condi-
tions (“Facts About” 1916, Phillips 2006: 124-125).
The late 1960s and early 1970s saw the phenomenon
of “white flight,” as the wealthy white population fled
the inner cities and downtowns for the cozy, isolated
suburbs (Rothstein 2017). Dallas was no exception; as
the white population moved, their tax dollars moved
with them (Hamric 1970). Surrounded by suburbs,
there was no shortage of places for Dallas whites to
relocate. Businesses serving these populations soon
followed suit. As the City hemorrhaged the loss in
taxes, property taxes soared to make up the difference.
Meanwhile in an effort to “clean up” cities, federal
urban renewal programs disproportionately destroyed
low-quality housing in African American and other
racial minority neighborhoods (Lipsitz 1998).
Landlords could collect more rent for rooms in the
crumbling downtown than they were currently taking
in if the buildings could be redone. This difference
between the current rent value and the potential rent
value is known as the “rent gap” (Smith 2005). Taking
advantage of the “rent gap” created by white flight,
22 Human Geography
developers demolished homes in African American
neighborhoods and replaced them with high-end
housing inaccessible to the previous residents. White
residents moved back, resulting in further displace-
ment. The resulting gentrification is a contested issue
in areas of Dallas, such as Oak Cliff (Walker 2018).
These are the decades of tension and violence and seg-
regation that separate North and South Dallas, East
and West Dallas. Neighborhoods are shaped, scarred,
and remade as residents strive to gain ground against
a City that would rather forget the past and let the
market take the reins on the future.
Harvey (1989) described the shift from city
governments in a managerial role to taking an entre-
preneurial position. For cities, this means a shift from
providing public services and maintaining public fa-
cilities, to playing the role of attracting and encourag-
ing local growth. Under the governance of neoliberal
economic policies, capital is mobilized and free to
flow where the most profit can be made. Cities thus
become actors who must dress themselves in order to
attract and compete for capital. According to Harvey
(1989), the switch to a focus on capital accumulation
has lasting historical impacts on cities, as the physical
and social urban landscapes are cultivated and shaped
to attract capital. Some of the characteristics that allow
an entrepreneurial city to do this are its intensive use
of natural resources, its focus on creating spectacles,
and its fondness for public-private partnerships.
For the neoliberal city, growth is the main goal, and
sustainability or pro-environmental narratives have
been one avenue by which to gain public support,
thus ensuring the smooth implementation of pro-
growth policies. The incorporation of environmental
protection or green practices smooths the path for
economic development, while simultaneously serving
as a band-aid to growing socio-economic inequity
(Long 2016). In Dallas, investments in the Trinity
River Corridor Project, parks, greenspaces, music
venues, and sports arenas create a playground for the
wealthy while shrinking public space and diverting
resources from the poor. Spectacular designs for
multi-million-dollar downtown parks dominate the
discourse of green development and sustainability in
Dallas (Michael van Valkenburgh & Assoc). Creating
this new image for the city requires the erasure of

Dallas’ racist history, and the camouflaging of its
racist present. The legitimacy of the neoliberal project
rests on the illusion of objective rationality. It cannot
be seen as racist for fear of crumbling (Pulido 2015).
However, white supremacy continues to permeate and
shape the process.
Wealth Remains in North Dallas
Whether viewed through Median Income,
Property Tax Base, or New Construction Value, a
pattern of uneven development is obvious within
Dallas. All three data distributions show the concen-
tration of wealth, either through income, property
value, or growth in North Dallas surrounding the
high-income enclaves and in Downtown. Figure 2
shows the distribution of median income across race
in Dallas.
Figure 2: Median household income in 2016 for white
families (top) and black or African American families
(bottom) from: City-data.com
Most of South, West, and South-Central Dallas
neighborhoods take in a much lower income than
their northern counterparts. This pattern mirrors the
flight of wealth to the North in the 20th century. It
also supports the concerns of gentrification shared by
residents of Joppa. The chronic underdevelopment of
this neighborhood is beginning to tilt the “see-saw”
of capital towards a new investment, a new source of
quick accumulation (Smith 2008). Revitalization of
Volume 12, Number 3 2019
KATIE KRUPALA
Joppa serves the “entrepreneurial” City (Harvey 1989)
by smoothing over its more undesirable attributes like
the poor and the homeless to create a setting attractive
to capital and new, more polished residents. So the
City is complicit in and facilitates the displacement,
or banishment (Roy 2017), of residents so that the
conditions are better for capital accumulation.
Figure 3: Property Tax Base rates across City Council
Districts
Property values are a good indicator of develop-
ment; an increase in property values means there is an
increase in or new development in that area. Figure 3
shows that the highest property values ($981,231.01
- $2.8 million) surround the Park Cities enclave, il-
lustrated in white by its absence. The highest valued
properties in North Dallas are worth over 500 times
more than some of their southern counterparts on
the other side of the Trinity River. As a whole, the
property tax base in Dallas averages $430,451/acre.
While this level of disparity is not out of the ordinary
in terms of income inequality for major cities in Texas,
the geographic distribution of wealth reflects histori-
cal incidents of uneven development, displacement,
and flight.
23
THE EVOLUTION OF UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT IN DALLAS, TX
Insert Figure 4: New Construction Value rates across City
Council Districts
Like the maps above it, Figure 4 also illustrates a
split between development in north and south Dallas.
The map shows New Construction Value, or new de-
velopment, that has taken place in each District of the
City. For example, in January 2018 there was a value
of new development at $5,553/acre. Taken as a whole,
the City of Dallas experienced new development at
$7,686/ acre. The highest cost of new development
is in the neighborhoods just south of the Park Cities,
directly adjacent to south Dallas.
Joppa’s Historic Neglect
Dallas’ position on the edge of the Civil War,
clinging onto slavery until the last moments, stenciled
the deep racial and class divide that is still evident
today. Segregation, whether enforced by the law
or mob rule, pushed the City’s black and minority
populations into particular, rather undesirable, neigh-
borhoods. These neighborhoods suffered neglect from
the City and remained “underdeveloped” in service of
affluent white spaces. Capital, in its ceaseless search
for new markets, is now expressing an interest in
these previously underdeveloped spaces. In Joppa,
this takes the form of green revitalization through
the creation of an extensive nature district known
24 Human Geography
as the Trinity River Corridor Project. It is at this
nexus of racial discrimination and predatory capital
that positions several neighborhoods in Dallas in the
fight against gentrification and for local control of
development. With nearby sites for eco-tourism, some
Joppa residents are concerned their property values
will rise beyond their means. While this paper does
not establish if gentrification is occurring in Joppa,
residents fear that the changes in other low-income
neighborhoods will spread to their neck of the woods.
Perhaps the central process in urban uneven de-
velopment is gentrification. Within cities, the process
of consumption, reproduction, and restructuring of
space via capital is intensified (Smith 2008). Capital
seeks out areas with a low ground-rent, which is es-
sentially the exchange-value of urban space, in order
to invest and create a profit. Gentrification can occur
when developers take advantage of the “rent gap,” or
redevelop areas at a cheap price in order to then charge
a higher rent (Smith 2005). Without the proper
protections, this can lead to displacement of poor
residents and local business owners, unable to afford
the new costs of living associated with the redevelop-
ment. Gentrification can also happen as the social
fabric of a neighborhood begins to change with an
influx of new residents (Lang & Rothenberg 2017).
Located near the Trinity River, further South on
Interstate 45 than South Dallas, the small neigh-
borhood of Joppa has a long history of struggle for
its place in City of Dallas. The details of Joppa’s
founding are in dispute. The widely accepted story is
that the land on which Joppa sits was once part of
a large plantation, owned by the Miller family. The
neighborhood is said to be founded in 1872 by slaves
freed from the Miller planation by the Emancipation
Proclamation after the Civil War. Henry Critz Hines
is the freedman credited with the initial founding,
after he was re-employed by the Millers to operate a
ferry across the Trinity River. By this time, the railroad
and the highway had helped carve up the plantation
land, providing jobs and yet isolating Joppa from the
surrounding communities. In the 1940s, the building
of the South Central Expressway (now known as S.M.
Wright Freeway) ushered in many new residents.
However, due to its location between the Great Trinity

Forest, the Trinity River, the railroad and the highway,
the neighborhood remained closed off. Like many
other African American neighborhoods in Dallas,
some homes in Joppa still did not have running water
or indoor plumbing until the late 1970s (Wade 1977).
One fourth generation resident I interviewed showed
me the rusty hand pump in her backyard that she used
to collect water as a teenager. Residents today still
complain of illegal garbage dumping, unpaved streets,
and missing streetlamps.
That structural failure has plagued Joppa for
decades is not an accident. In the early 1900s, Dallas
was organized based on a “ward system” of govern-
ment. Instead of serving a large district, city council
members represented neighborhoods, which to sup-
porters, allowed representatives to focus on the needs
of their constituents. Dallas elites campaigned against
this arrangement in favor of commissioners, which
gave more power to the city’s commercial elite and
refocused attention and resources to the upper and
middle classes. As a result, basic services were directed
away from low-income and racial minority com-
munities and towards the upper-class neighborhoods
(Phillips 2006: 63).
These issues persist over time, as the same concerns
have been raised month after month at the South
Central Civic League community meetings. I attended
monthly meetings from April 2018- May 2019. Mr.
Albert Black spoke at the meeting in October 2018
meeting. A long time African American Dallas
resident, Mr. Black is now running for Mayor. The
candidate put on a great presentation; he knows how
to capture a room, how to create tension, and how to
land his message. He went straight to the concerns
of Joppa and played off the obvious ineptitude of
the previous speakers, the Dallas Police Department
and Code Enforcement. “I’m ashamed of the city I’m
asking you to believe in,” he said, “Dallas doesn’t make
excuses like I heard here tonight.” He focused on his
message of being willing to listen to Joppa residents,
saying, “it doesn’t matter if you vote here, it matters if
you are here,” in a clear counter to the neglect of the
current representative, Councilman Kevin Felder. He
Volume 12, Number 3 2019
KATIE KRUPALA
also spoke of the racial and class divide that is marked
by the Trinity River, and the current state of Joppa,
…You weren’t smoked out, you were rotted out.
You are underserved on purpose… The good
fairy don’t come south of the Trinity River, you
have to work for it… If you neglect a strategically
located neighborhood south of the Trinity in the
floodplain… you leave, and developers can come
in… Dallas can treat some citizens so good and
others so bad.
His remarks resonated with those at the meeting;
many were nodding along and there was an atmo-
sphere of agreement and many stayed to talk, shake
hands, and take pictures after the meeting. Mr. Black
grew up in the Frazier Court Housing Project in East
Dallas and is keenly aware of the “racial divide” that
separates East and South Dallas from the wealthier,
whiter Northern and downtown areas. He paints a
picture of a Joppa that is ignored on purpose, as part
of a long-term plan for land grabbing by develop-
ers. If the community slowly withers away from
neglect, then opportunist developers will be able to
“come in” and take advantage of the once worthless
land in the floodplain. In a 2017 interview with the
Dallas Morning News, Bill Hall, the CEO of Dallas
Area Habitat for Humanity, remarked of the view of
wetlands, “If this community were anywhere else, it
would be worth millions” (Wilonsky 2017).
In his eyes, the City’s neglect is intentional, and
the motives malicious. As shown in the history of
Dallas at the beginning of this paper, race and class
split along almost the same lines. Black residents
were legally and violently confined to certain small
areas within the city, and their opportunities limited,
their futures stunted. This legacy continues to impact
residents today, as poor black neighborhoods still
battle neglect by the City.
The culture of neglect and disregard that has made
the City comfortable with the underdevelopment of
Joppa stems from deeply ingrained white supremacy.
Joppa’s City Council representative, Kevin Felder, felt
emboldened to ignore the community for two reasons.
25
THE EVOLUTION OF UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT IN DALLAS, TX
Joppa represents a relatively small voting bloc, so the
voice of the community had little impact on his ability
to remain in power. Councilman Felder also facilitated
the completion of deals with private corporations such
as the opportunity for the Union Pacific Railroad to
overtake a critical road leading into Joppa.
Today, Joppa’s main concerns are stimulat-
ing growth within Joppa and for Joppa, creating a
community center, and working to overcome the
injustices faced. Their main goal is “to attract people
to Joppa while protecting it from large-scale devel-
opment” (Findell 2015). With a median income of
only around $19,000, residents of Joppa earn far less
than the average Dallas County citizen (Habitat for
Humanity).
Joppa’s existence as a historic black community
in the racially segregated city of Dallas means it has
prevailed against structural racism and neglect since
its inception. Since the 1940s, community organiz-
ing, signing petitions, and conducting sit-ins have
been methods the neighborhood used to acquire an
elementary school, a bridge over the railroad, keep
their bus routes, and many others. The City dragged its
feet in providing paved streets, streetlights, sidewalks,
and drainage in the neighborhood, and some of these
services are still lacking to this day. This pattern of
neglect continues, as evidenced by Joppa’s antagonistic
relationship with the city council. Structural racism
and class oppression intersect in Joppa; the white
elite in Dallas needs have largely ignored residents for
decades. This in itself is not a product of neoliberalism,
but neoliberalism does advance this neglect through
different discourses. Spectacular neoliberal projects
like the Trinity River Corridor Project, for example,
reinforce and reproduce the racial and class divide
that was sowed long ago. The promises of revitaliza-
tion through these projects are sold as being beneficial
for everyone, while they ultimately serve the interests
of capital. Historically, resources were diverted from
Joppa due to the racist atmosphere under which it
was created, but this did not stop the residents from
coming together to try. A 4th generation resident of
Joppa I interviewed explained their relationship with
the City this way,
26 Human Geography
…That was the goal of the older generation, of my
grandmother, they wanted something to come to
the neighborhood, to build up the neighborhood.
It would generate not only positivity, but revenues,
and the City would say …‘yeah let’s do this’… and
I figure that’s why they won’t do it, because we’re
being overlooked. In so many different ways. They
constantly want us to vote on bond packages,
and it’s like we vote on the bond packages, but
you’re not coming through. The money is diverted
somewhere else.
Under neoliberalism, resources are now diverted
in the name of green revitalization. Features of the
Trinity River Corridor Project like the Audubon
Center, the Horse Park, the Golf Club, and the
AT&T walking trails all add to the picture of Dallas
as a “nature-oriented-city.” Every feature the City can
add to its “10,000 acre Nature District” sets it further
apart from the competition. These projects come
with the promises of environmental protection, social
benefits, and economic growth for not only Dallas but
also the immediate areas, including Joppa. However,
Joppa residents have not seen any economic benefit
from the projects, and now face fear of imminent
gentrification. I sat down with the former president
of the South Central Civic League one afternoon in
March of 2018. He compared the fate of Houston’s
3rd Ward to the trajectory of Joppa:
Up there just north of Dallas in the freeman’s town,
this is the last, freeman’s town I guess you could
say that’s still pretty much intact. They have one
in Houston, I think its 3rd Ward, was a freeman’s
town. But you know, because of gentrification,
its no longer there. And that’s what’s happening
here… We were talking about the benefits of this
community, ok, I’m sure you wouldn’t have heard
about it yet — they’re building an observation
deck right down here on the Trinity…. Well, why
would they want to do that if the majority of the
citizens around here couldn’t care less about it?
They have had plans for some time, to build some
fairly nice condos right back there. That they’re on
their way also. And, when that happens, you’ll see,
gradually other changes, and this type of thing,
THE EVOLUTION OF UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT IN DALLAS, TX
not necessarily for the citizens around here, but
for people coming in.
Empty lots in Joppa are being bought by various
developers at cheap prices. Many of the lots go for
around $4,000 (DCAD 2018). Residents often receive
fliers in the mail with offers to buy their houses.
However, the 4th generation resident who received
this card has no plans to sell:
… We’re still existing. We’re not going anywhere.
We’re not wanting to sell out. My grandmother
always said don’t sell your property because it’s
going to be worth it for you to hold onto it. We
can’t keep getting overlooked. If you hold onto it,
and keep the hope, and the vision, that we will be
something on the map.
Development for Human’s Sake
Patterns of uneven development in cities across
the United States form in a fundamentally racialized
context (Rothstein 2017). Legal and mob enforced
racial segregation forced African American and other
minority communities into often hazardous living
conditions in undesirable neighborhoods, oftentimes
in industrial areas or floodplains. An understanding
of class division within the city is only possible in
light of a racist history. As cities introduce revitaliza-
tion plans to dissipate the legacy of historic uneven
development, with the double intention of creating
spaces attractive to capital, the responsibility of social
equity is passed off to the market. In this way, the city
can mask its ugly qualities through a revitalization
facelift while retrenching economic and social divides.
While it occurs in every city, the course of uneven
development, the appearances it assumes, are context
specific and multidimensional. An examination of a
city’s racialized history can shed light on the particular
characteristics of current development, as well as point
out the racist conditions that constitute and are repro-
duced by neoliberal revitalization schemes. I believe
there are many opportunities for future research
in this area, as no one city is alike. Additionally, an
explicit assertion of the racist foundations of the
neoliberal city move us towards meaningful change.
Volume 12, Number 3 2019
For neoliberalism to maintain legitimacy, it cannot be
seen as racist (Pulido 2015). The residents of Joppa
are intimately familiar with the racist nature of these
structures, but their view is worth less than those who
control the dominant neoliberal discourse.
My research in Dallas shows but one way that
uneven development is continually enacted: green
revitalization. In Dallas, green revitalization and
the accompanying fears of imminent gentrification
are reflective of racialized nature of development,
unfulfilled development plans, and lack of political
representation. Dallas has largely retained the racial
boundaries of the past. Formal and informal segre-
gation separated white Dallasites from non-white,
rich from poor, passive from active. Wealth was se-
questered in elite white neighborhoods, like the Park
Cities, and remains there today and historically white
neighborhoods consistently have higher incomes and
property values than historically non-white. Whether
it was acting in a managerial or entrepreneurial
capacity, the City of Dallas has fostered this divide
through zoning laws, the construction of highways,
personal relationships with industry, and neglect to
properly represent its citizens. As an entrepreneurial
city (Harvey 1989) with the goal of economic growth,
the City has a vested interest in maintaining the status
quo, upheld through a legacy of white supremacy and
racial capitalism.
The City of Dallas has turned its attention towards
and invested resources in the Trinity River Corridor
Project in order to craft an image for the city. This
neoliberal project has masked the true needs of low-
income communities by providing inappropriate
solutions to structurally entrenched problems. In the
case of the Trinity River Corridor Project, there is a
gap between discourse and reality. While the project
is sold as generating economic growth, fostering social
sustainability, and protecting the environment, it is
ultimately a matter of downtown revitalization and
unmet promises elsewhere. This plan benefits the City
and the economic interests of the elite by creating a
space for capital accumulation out of the previously
“worthless” land along the TRC. Major projects are
targeting African American neighborhoods downtown,
reproducing neglect of more isolated neighborhoods
27

like Joppa. As a historic freedman’s town founded
after the end of the American Civil War, Joppa has
struggled through decades of structural racism and
municipal neglect. Joppa’s position within Dallas
highlights the continued injustice it and other low
income, historically non-white neighborhoods face in
Dallas. Developers may be interested in Joppa due to
its prime location near these natural amenities and its
low property values, both a result of its neglect and
isolation from the City. Fears of imminent gentrifica-
tion and displacement abound within Joppa. In-person
interviews with long-time residents of Joppa show the
changing social atmosphere in the neighborhood and
reaffirm the need for Joppa-led development.
The lives and livelihoods of Joppa’s residents
do not matter to the City; they are not the kind of
residents Dallas is trying to attract, like flies to a
lamp. They have been overlooked in favor of capital
and white supremacy again and again, and their
own representative has the audacity to blame them
for their circumstances. It is not any flaw or failure
of the residents of Joppa that they do not have what
the white wealthy neighborhoods of Dallas have. It is
not an accident. The lives of people of color are not
important to the City of Dallas, not in the way that
a bold statement park downtown is important, not in
the way that a few signature bridges are important,
not the way a private golf course is important. While
economic growth remains the key goal of urban devel-
opment, green revitalization projects further entrench
social and environmental problems while insidiously
claiming the moral high ground. But these material
visions of social, economic, and environmental sus-
tainability cannot mask the deep structural and racial
divides which set the stage for uneven development.
Acknowledgements
I would like to especially thank the anonymous
reviewers for the thorough and encouraging feedback
that made the final version of this paper possible.
Thank you as well to Waquar Ahmed and Ipsita Chat-
terjee for all their guidance and advice, and to Reese
Ramsey for his help in designing the maps.
28 Human Geography
KATIE KRUPALA
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Prison

30 Human Geography