Posted on Thu, Apr. 24, 2008

O.K. Carter's last column: After 36 years, Arlington different yet still the same

Having signed on as a journalist covering Arlington on Jan. 20, 1972, it is now -- several thousand columns and editorials later -- time to move on.

Retirement kicks in tomorrow, though I prefer to think of it as a transitional lifestyle in which there's more free time for other activities. But with less income to pay for them.

Everybody either quits, dies at his desk or is corporately downsized eventually, so a journalistic career spanning 36 years (and three months, five days, but who's counting?) is hardly a unique event.

The oddity comes about because, back in 1972, my beat was Arlington, and darned if it isn't the same today. There's probably a message about career mobility or lack thereof in there somewhere, but it's a little late to fret now. Besides, I loved the whole experience.

OK, maybe not all of it, but mostly. When one throws bricks, metaphorically speaking, for a living, quite a few come whizzing back. This occasionally leaves bruises. Or a blood trail. But it's only fair.

Arlington and I went through middle age and grew older together, a topic worthy of one final discussion under this byline.

In 1972, Arlington had just passed the 100,000 population mark, but the mid-city didn't have the political muscle of the larger cities it was sandwiched between. That position fed certain eccentricities.

For instance, as a rookie reporter I asked then-City Editor Gene Randall how I might catch a bus to work.

"I'm pretty sure Arlington is the largest city in the country without a mass transit system," said Randall.

He was correct then and 36 years later he's still right, though the distinction has been upgraded a trifle. Arlington is the only city among the nation's 100 most populous that still does not have transit. Here's a prediction: The next election on the topic will pass, though it'll be grudgingly so.

But back to that mid-city business. Because its location was exactly midway between Fort Worth and Dallas -- 16 miles to either downtown -- Arlington really became the poster city for the move-to-suburbia movement. Indeed, through all of the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s, its population exploded faster than either Dallas' or Fort Worth's. It was, in fact, the fastest-growing city in the nation.

Visually this phenomenon was striking. It was easy to see a few hundred homes with identical roof colors here, another few hundred of another color just next door. The older neighborhoods -- maybe 2 or 3 years old -- would have trees 10 feet tall, the next youngest would have 5-foot trees, the next merely sprigs.

What used to be cotton fields became sprawling rooftops, Bermuda lawns and pecan trees -- and strip centers. The whole place pollinated. It made developers wealthy and kept real-estate agents flush, but would never make the pages of Architectural Digest. In particular, many apartment complexes seemed designed to last 20 years, but unfortunately they're still around.

Although Interstate 30 certainly provided its boost, it was really Interstate 20 that became the cash river, albeit with unintended consequences. Though population in Arlington exploded -- it's now closing on 375,000 -- retail grew faster. New stores and malls cannibalized the old.

Most of us didn't realize that the mid-1980s would be the zenith of the boom days.

Yes, Arlington continued to grow, but at a less-feverish pace as the city began to build out its 100 square miles. Other cities developed competitive retail and housing. Many wealthier residents fled to newer enclaves. Arlington's older, smaller housing didn't have great property tax potential and a sort of lingering post-Reagan aversion to taxes kept the council from making the kind of investment in streets, parks and cultural amenities that would have been paid back by higher property values and more upscale commercial development. The city's economic profile slid. Its demographics became far more diverse.

The good news for Arlington is that the comeback is under way. The city has three colleges, a national brand as a tourism center and a highly fortuitous infusion of millions of dollars in natural gas money. It's also still right in the middle of the Metroplex, which will be highly attractive as commuting costs make location more important.

The challenges are great but manageable. I'll be watching to see how it comes out, though after Friday it'll be in a considerably different role.