For any number of reasons, I don’t know too many people who would want to equate downtown Hong Kong with downtown Dallas. And maybe it was just a little jet-lag giddiness on the part of the Dallas delegation wrapping up its China trip that caused several in that party to wonder aloud that Dallas could someday match Hong Kong in downtown vitality, according to Dave Levinthal’s reporting with the Morning News. But as councilmen Jerry Allen and Ron Natinsky apparently gazed in admiration at the myriad blinking lights and video boards in Hong Kong and then fantasized about having something similar downtown, one big difference came to mind: We don’t have too many people downtown after dark.
Part of the discussion seemed to revolve around whether Dallas should allow small video billboards downtown, separately and mounted on buildings, as both a way to bring in revenue and a way to make downtown more exciting. That’s a good question, since additional revenue is always nice, but what winds up on the billboards (ads for downtown businesses or ads for the Men’s Club or the Million Dollar Saloon?) will certainly impact downtown’s renaissance.
The China traveling party, according to the DMN story, seemed to believe that billboards and lights equate with downtown vitality. But those things are merely byproducts of what happens when there are enough people living, working and playing downtown, and nearby, to attract advertisers to spend money getting their message across. Leading with eye-blowing advertising isn’t going to make downtown more exciting; continuing to invest in building up the neighborhoods surrounding downtown — and waiting for the hundreds of millions of dollars the city has already invested in downtown to pay off — makes more sense to me than turning the place into a garish lightshow.
