A Glimmer of Hope

Dallas, Texas has always been a place of contradictions. It’s a city known for being the buckle of the Bible Belt with many churches that are hostile to gays yet it has twice elected a lesbian as county sheriff. It’s a city known for banking and big business yet some of the early settlers were socialists from a nearby failed commune known as Las Reunion. And then last Saturday this Republican dominated city, which recently saw a massive “tea bag” demonstration, voted to start a community-owned economic enterprise.

Like so many urban centers the city of Dallas has long struggled to revitalize its once vibrant downtown business district. Over time businesses had fled the downtown area to the suburbs, leaving it largely a ghost town. Some progress has been recently made as abandoned office buildings are starting to be converted into apartments. But City Hall is still struggling to bring life back to the heart of the city. One of those challenges that have made it especially difficult has been the lack of adequate hotel space in the downtown area. This lack of hotels has cost the city convention business as well as sporting events. Over the years the city has tried, to no avail, to get a new hotel through the old standby techniques of giving tax incentives for new construction. In the 90’s the city seemed close to having a new hotel built but the Crow family, who owns the Dallas hotel Hilton Anatole, provided land to build a park, which was so generous that the city couldn’t politically turn it down. The idea of a new hotel in the central business district seemed dead.

Then the city leaders had an idea.

After years of trying to get the market to provide a new hotel the city leaders decided to build a publically-owned hotel. Once the city council approved the enterprise the city started working to have it built. First, it bought the land (admittedly it overpaid for it). It then hired a construction firm to break ground and begin construction. To no one’s surprise not long after that forces opposed to the hotel, which consisted largely of the Crow family (remember them?), were able to push through a referendum to force a public vote on the hotel. After a dirty and expensive campaign, with the most money spent by the hotel opponents, amazingly the Dallas voters approved the publically-owned hotel.

This hotel project is far from perfect. The biggest flaw is how it will be managed. The city chose a private firm, Omni Hotels, to manage the new hotel. The city should have instead established a worker-managed corporation in which the workers of the hotel elected their own board of directors to manage the enterprise.

That criticism being said the idea that a conservative, pro-business, heavily Republican, city such as Dallas can choose to start a community-owned enterprise, which is one of the elements of an economic democracy, should give us all hope for the future.