Dallas & Fort Worth: A Tale of Two City's Convention Center Hotels

Way back in December I got rid of that newspaper that was always managing to vex me, that being the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, replacing the vexation with the Dallas Morning News.

It is now almost May and I don't believe I've read a single thing in the Dallas paper that vexed me by being either stupid or just plain wrong.

The Dallas paper seems way more community minded than the Fort Worth paper. The Dallas paper does not seem to be some sort of Chamber of Commerce propaganda spewer. The Dallas paper seems to honestly and accurately cover issues.

Take the current debate, in Dallas, over building a taxpayer subsidized hotel for the Dallas Convention Center. Fort Worth recently opened a taxpayer subsidized hotel for its convention center where rarely anything convenes.

In Dallas, a grown up city with the representative democracy form of government, a vote by the citizens will determine if the citizens will build a taxpayer subsidized hotel. In Fort Worth such things are not put to a public vote. Including Fort Worth's Convention Center Hotel.

In Fort Worth when the hotel was being discussed, with the Ruling Junta insisting it was necessary in order to book conventions, I thought it odd that nothing was ever said, that I noticed, regarding the idea that if private business did not see it as a good idea to build a hotel, maybe the idea had a flaw.

In Dallas the idea that if private business did not see the value, then maybe the idea is flawed, is part of the discussion. Including the point that the real problem is not the lack of hotel causing a lack of conventions, but rather it is the lack of Dallas having attractions downtown that make people like the idea of convening there.

When Fort Worth had the hotel debate I don't recollect the real problem ever being mentioned. It's sort of a sore subject, I suppose, but it seems so obvious, unless your town is some sort of tourist draw you are not going to draw a lot of conventions.

Now, obviously some tourists do come to Dallas and Fort Worth. But not in the numbers that go to places like Orlando or San Fransisco or New York City or Chicago or New Orleans or Seattle or dozens of other American cities.

So, in Dallas it has entered into the Convention Center Hotel debate the idea that Dallas needs to work on being more attractive to tourists. Now, to me, Dallas already seems like it has a lot of good attractions, though of late the West End and Deep Ellum have gotten tired.

In Fort Worth the Ruling Junta has finally gotten around to fixing what would seem to me to be the biggest problem that caused convention bookers to balk, that being the unsightly mess that Lancaster Avenue was for years after the overhead 1-30 eyesore was removed.

Dallas has a lot of big downtown hotels. I've been to a convention in one. It was huge. I don't see why the taxpayers of Dallas would vote to build a $500 million hotel. It makes no sense to me. But the debate they are having in Dallas over the issue, does make sense to me, unlike debates in Fort Worth over similar issues.