Economic Development of Dallas After Dark: Randall White and Dr. Eric Anthony Johnson
Bruce Bleakley: This is your Captain speaking. Welcome aboard everyone. I’m Bruce Bleakley, and I’ll be your pilot for this week’s flight of Dallas Love Field’s Lead with Love podcast. This week, our guests are Randall White, Founder of 24-hour Dallas, and Dr. Eric Johnson, Chief of Economic Development and Neighborhood Services at the City of Dallas. As champions of the Dallas culture, Randall and Dr. Johnson shared their stories about the history and future of nightlife in Dallas, and how economic development after dark affects our daily lives. If you want to be part of the live conversation next time head over to the Dallas Love Field, Facebook or YouTube page every other Tuesday at 12:30 pm Central. One last thing before we take off…
Parking in Love Field Garages is the best bargain of any commercial airport in Texas and if you’re a Dallas Mavericks fan, you can park with the Mavs on Level 2 of Garage C where Dallas muralist and graffiti artist, Tex Moton has rendered the entire level with his very own brand of the Mavericks team spirit in bold colors, images and slogans. Like everything else at Love Field, Garage C is easy to find. So when you fly out of Love, click on the link in the episode description to Love Field’s parking garage page for a short video that shows you exactly how to get to Garage C and park with Mavs.
Now we’ve been cleared for takeoff. I’ll turn the microphone over to Randall White and Dr. Eric Johnson.
Randall White: Welcome to Dallas Love Field’s Lead with Love. My name is Randall White. I’m the founder and president of 24-hour Dallas, a nonprofit organization in Dallas that’s all volunteer powered. It’s focused on the night time economy. This gentleman with me is Dr. Eric Anthony Johnson. He’s Chief of Economic Development, Housing and Neighborhood Services at the City of Dallas. As if any one of those areas wasn’t enough responsibility, he has all three. Welcome to Dallas Love Field’s Lead with Love Dr. Johnson.
Dr. Eric Johnson: All right, thanks Randall. Thanks for inviting me. I really appreciate it. And hello to everyone on Facebook, YouTube and the Love Field world. So thank you.
Randall White: I don’t know what kind of experiences you’ve had with Love Field Dr. Johnson in the amount of time you’ve lived in Dallas. But as the season begins to turn and we hear about college football games, and starting this weekend, I begin to kind of remember the fall, and as a graduate of the University of Oklahoma and what I call the OU/Texas game, not the Texas/OU game as they call it down here, I’m going to Love Field and greeting all my friends as they come in wearing their crimson and cream polyester, you know, for the game, Love Field is part of that rite of passage of the fall and I’m appreciative of that particular memory and appreciate Love Field for having both of us here today. They even sent me this cool mask. Everybody needs to keep masked up and stay safe so we can get to the other side of this and we can all travel again and enjoy our life and enjoy our night life. One last note, before we get on with the show; you may have noticed in the lead off of this program that they showed a clip from a Dallas makeovers Dallas Mavericks kind of take over the Level 2 of Garage C during that video. Next time you fly out of Love Field, you know, park there. I’m hoping Mark Cuban will personally park my car for me.
Dr. Eric Johnson: Well, I will make sure I’m parked there I mean, I’m a huge a Mavericks fan and I joke with my son, who’s a big Luka Dončić fan, so I’ll make sure I do that, and he would be totally excited to see that in the airport.
Randall White: I’m sure I’m sure what a remarkable talent Luca is. Dallas Love Fields Lead with Love series is about bringing together voices from North Texas and to share stories of Leadership and respect for diversity and equality and inclusion. A celebration of local culture. And that’s really kind of, in a way, what Dr. Johnson is about professionally What I am about as volunteer with my organization. So you can have an opportunity to leave your questions for us on Facebook or YouTube, and we’ll do our best to answer as many as we can as we go forward. So I want to start with Dr. Johnson I just have a question here and let’s see what kind of where it leads us. We talked a lot about Economic Development. What does that mean? What does that mean to you? I mean, you wound up in the in the world in the industry of economic development. How do you explain that to people that don’t really understand that?
Dr. Eric Johnson: I would probably say, simply put, its really about a combination of well job creation combined with social and community development. I think you need all those aspects to really drive economic development. It’s sort of the one thing that communities really try to have, you know, strong economy, strong framework that’s adaptable to change. So all of that is about economic development.
Randall White: I somehow or another wound up in this sector as a volunteer. As a long time entrepreneur, I came up out of the nonprofit world, but somehow or another, I realized that an economic vibrancy of a city was important to its sustainability and its ability to provide services and goods to, to its citizens, And that if we don’t focus on building our economy and strengthening it, what we’re going to do is we’re going to wind up leeching,
all the revenue for the city out. You know, I love the suburbs. I love the suburbs, good for the suburbs that they’re doing so well and attracting businesses and residents. But I would like more of that back in the city of Dallas. And so that someday, we’re not talking about Durant Oklahoma as part of the Metroplex, you know? We have the opportunity in Dallas to invest more, to get more density, to have more of the world, to come the city and and then add that tax base. So we can do the things our citizens need. Right? I mean, that’s part of your world?
Dr. Eric Johnson: Yeah, absolutely it’s what’s important in that I think you mentioned it. It’s the sense of energy. It is the authenticity that is what’s going to separate Dallas. When I think about Love Field, for example, here’s what stands out to me. It stands out as Dallas. It stands out as urban. It stands out as unique. Nothing against the big one, so the DFW airport, but that Love Field really represents like Dallas if you really think about it. Right? So it is about this competitive advantage building on all of those unique elements. We don’t have to mimic what’s in the suburbs. I mean, I just I don’t think you have to do that. You have to build on the authenticity present within the city. And this case, the city of Dallas,
Randall White: Right? Right? We were talking a little bit before we went live about some history of Dallas Love Field and we discovered a little nugget that at one point there was an Entertainment District at Love Field in the 70s, where you could ice skate, who knew? It’s still kind of in the center of our city. But economic development is also, you know, and sometimes you say that word I say that word and people go, “oh developers, scary developers” and it’s really it’s not about that. It’s about people who are willing to invest and create businesses. You know, in the nighttime economy, particularly we have a lot of individuals and entrepreneurs. These are sometimes their second jobs, they have a day job, and they want to start their own business, and they start it at night, or they’re working, they’re working at night because they have to. It’s a second job for them. And so it is about jobs. It’s about businesses. It’s about quality of life. It’s about people who like to go out and enjoy our night, whether it’s not just nightlife, not just bars and restaurants, etc. but also, festivals, open spaces, parks, people that need to go to the grocery store, people that need to go to the drugstore, the workforce that works at night often times isn’t thought of by those folks who work nine to five. You know it. When do the people who work overnight vote? Where do they take their cleaning after work, when after work is 6 am In the morning? You know, we have an opportunity here to kind of, think about as we grow. And as we get more dense, it’s not only about growing taller buildings and spreading further into our city limits, but also growing into the night.
Dr. Eric Johnson: Well, I think, you know, even in the subject matter of economic development, I don’t think we give enough credit to, or we have not been thinking more about the night time economy. And I’ll tell you why that’s important. You mentioned there is life after five, not just bars and restaurants to your point. It is sort of imagine if you quantify what that impact is after 5 and what that means to the city’s competitive advantage, because all of this is about competition. I’m a sports guy, you know, it’s all about competition. So why should we leave on the table, an element of the economy that we’re not speaking of in capturing more about? And to me, it’s sort of also allows us to start to put on our big city pants for lack of a better word. You know, if you want to run with the big boys and be seen as a big Juggernaut City, we have to talk about in, Capture those types of opportunities.
Randall White: And again, big Juggernaut City, a Global City, a Superstar City. I’m hearing that coming out of City Hall a lot. We used to hear World-Class City. I like the word Global City. What is a Global City and who, you know, and who are, we emulating… 24-hour Dallas has a network of about 60 different other cities around the planet that are focused on their night time economy in different ways. Our friends in Europe focus a lot on the club scene. We’re really kind of a more holistic kind of approach to making, not life safer and more fiber culturally as well as economically and also more inclusive. But we believe that that’s what elevates will elevate Dallas on a peer level to the the organization’s we look at that are in London and Paris and Berlin and Amsterdam and New York City. These are the, and Washington DC, these are the groups that that are focused on the night time economy, getting data on it. I’m grateful that your office has decided it wants to move forward with a nighttime economic impact study. So we can see exactly where we are, where we’ve been and where we could go, because we need that data.
Dr. Eric Johnson: Yeah, No, Yeah, The data is going to actually help to further the narrative. So we talk about concepts like Global cities, World-class city, Superstar cities. You know, there’s a handful of cities that usually come to mind and we want Dallas to be in that conversation, Sure. And I think if you’re talking to members of the city council, for example, they all would say they want us to raise the profile of Dallas proper, Dallas proper. So when you think about the narrative of the night time economy, and you are someone that is a creative person looking to decide where you want to live, ,invest in grow, you know, elements like the night time economy can actually push push your decision over the hurdle, because you’re like, oh, wow, I didn’t realize they were looking at the city like that versus traditionally saying, oh, you know, we’re going to do the traditional stuff. So it really helps, and it elevates the status. So the brand becomes more recognizable and not an afterthought.
Randall White: And we also know that workforces change. I mean, if there’s one thing that covid did it forced a lot of home and in working from home, and we are no longer, kind of a nine-to-five city, you know, And the, the kind of the kind of workforce that we can attract and appeal to Dallas from around the world and from companies that are looking for places to relocate, that might be more tax friendly or whatever. The nighttime economy and the quality of life and that kind of thing plays very important in that decision-making process.
Dr. Eric Johnson: Well, I think, is important for people to understand that we not talking about just bars and restaurants. We are talking about a global society where, for example, there are incubators operating 24 hours a day. Because those relationships are with companies all across the globe could be in China, you know, and people, you go to some of these cities you see this stuff really, really happening. So I don’t know if we talked about that enough, because it’s just not like downtown, it’s all over the entire city. I just It’s important to separate that, because some people think, oh, nighttime, bars, restaurants. Well, that’s important but there are other elements. That’s why I mentioned the example of an incubator. And I see an incubator where it’s like three or four levels, and it’s got digital animations, got everything in there you know, like new economy stuff going on you like, Wow, it’s one o’clock in the morning. And these people still in there working, you know, so capturing that stuff, quantifying it and saying, hey, as a city, we want to run with the big boys. We want to be seen as one of these Global sort of Superstar cities that’s doing everything to generate the talent, attraction, resources and investment.
Randall White: I agree A hundred percent. And, you know, as we talked about the importance of developing, not just nightlife, as you made the point, It’s not just nightlife in terms of whoo hoo let’s go out and have a good time. It is also about the whole ecosystem of the night that you put an actor on a stage at a theater production and realize that supporting that one person is an entire network of people that put that actor on stage the people in the ticket office, the folks in costuming, folks that help with makeup. So all of this is is it’s not just one thing that the audience sees. There’s a whole system that is supported by that one person on stage. And so, in terms of the importance of developing Dallas’s nighttime economy, we’ve talked about some of it being more of a global City, or more Superstar City, attracting more of a workforce. But it’s also that there’s just so much opportunity at night. It presents challenges, because then you’ve got the situation where if some people are 9:00 to 5:00, and you got other folks that are going to be between six and six, how we mitigate any conflict as one of the things our volunteers I’ve got that We’ve got an incredible team of volunteers, Dr. Johnson, with 24-hour Dallas. I’ve got volunteers focused on racial equity. I’ve got volunteers focused on safety, women’s safety, we got multi focused on nighttime economy placemaking at night, communication. I’ve got a great team of volunteers that are wonderful, diverse, talented skilled They are the leaders of the city for tomorrow, and I’m so appreciative of them. And and they get it. They know that we’re talking about hotels and restaurants and festivals and food trucks and public spaces like Klyde Warren Park at night that can just be vibrant, and it not only adds to our tax base, it just creates a patina for our city that says Dallas is where I want to go.
Dr. Eric Johnson: Just to add to that, I use that term competitive, competitive advantage. If you go through London at night, go to New York at night, Paris at night, I would even throw in, you know, Boston and some other cities. Chicago. You would say to yourself, What is going on? It is so many people to activity in the life is so great. Now you go to other cities, you know, and you like it is so quiet here, there’s nothing going on. You don’t want to be that City. You want to be sort of the opposite where you like, Oh, my goodness, you know, you would have, you can see guys, and, you know, individuals and suits and all sorts of stuff walking around there 2, 3 o’clock in the morning. And they’re not going to clubs, they’re doing business, right? And that’s something just to really think about.
Randall White: It sure it is. And you know, you raise a good point that when any of us, I think, travels to another city, the daytime is cool, but it’s the night I think we remember. It’s walking along the Sydney Harbour walk you are looking at the Sydney Opera House. It is, is walking, I think, in Chicago’s Millennium Park at night and hearing a jazz band playing over by the Bean. You know it is is that experience that I come away from more than the daytime thing even if I’m there on business. So it’s a terrific opportunity. I think we talked about how nightlife and nighttime activity affects other aspects of the city. It makes us more attractive to tourism. It makes it more attractive to businesses. And the opportunity, I think, though, is to mitigate any conflicts with residents. That’s really kind of the Genesis of where 24-hour Dallas evolved. And I would encourage anybody watching, go to the 24-hour Dallas dot-org, https://www.24hourdallas.org/ and find out a little bit more about us, but we came up out of trying to mitigate some conflict between an entertainment or social district, as I like to call them, and an adjacent residential neighborhood. We believe that there are ways to move forward in a way that’s peaceful.
Dr. Eric Johnson: I think that’s a good sort of segue to talk about a little bit in terms of what our organizations do straight. So for myself, as Chief of Economic Development, Housing, Neighborhood Services and Sustainable Development and Construction, my office, we handle basically everything from Economic Development, if you are looking to locate to the city, looking to expand business operations, we handle all of that. On the housing side, we look at everything from housing, have oversight of planning and design. So if you going through planning process, historic preservation and the building permitting process is also something that is a part of my portfolio. It’s a big job. We have a pretty good team at the city of Dallas, and it’s constant just evolving of the work we have to do. And I think, with the support of the city council, we have an opportunity to continue to do some great work in Dallas.
Randall White: That’s terrific. and and 24-hour Dallas itself, is a nonprofit organization. We’re just a little over a year old. We evolved out of an initiative that came up out of the hospitality sector, and we’re volunteer powered right now. About half of our members are individuals who care about the night time economy. The other half are businesses who have a presence in the nighttime economy, Not just restaurants and Arts and Cultural organizations, But also social service agencies that serve the populace of the night time economy. And like I said, we’ve got these teams that are focused on developing these initiatives in women’s safety and in nighttime placemaking, which is different than at the daytime and some ecological issues that have to do with the night, you know, trees are still green at night, and we keep them that way. But that’s a little bit about the focus of our organization. Anybody can join, anybody can be involved we’re about to launch, crossing my fingers, given a final green light from a national sponsor, we’re about to launch a major initiative that will focus on making the nighttime more comfortable and more respectful and safer for several social districts in the city of Dallas. We’ve got some rapid fire questions. I’m going to ask you first, and then I’ll answer what mine is, Dr. Johnson, what is your walk on song and why that song?
Dr. Eric Johnson: I mean, I’m a music guy, but my walk on song is by Pat Benatar, Invincible. Okay. Okay, That’s my walk on.
Randall White: So I’m kind of fond of Black Eyed Peas, I Gotta Feeling, you know, kind of pumps me up in the lyric is “tonight’s going to be a good night”
Dr. Eric Johnson:Yeah. Okay, That’s pretty good.
Randall White: We need to turn more into the 21st century. Yeah, At Love Field, have you had a chance to dine at any of the restaurants at Love Field,
Dr. Eric Johnson: Yeah, Well, you know what? I’m a hamburger guy, so I’m going to Whataburger.
Randall White: There’s nothing more Texas than that! It’s kind of cool that the restaurants that are at Love Field are all Texas centered, Even the ones that sound foreign like La Madeleine which happens to be my favorite. And if you force me to to eat anything, it would be to eat everything. Yeah, I could sit there with croissants and butter and jam, and just be just happy to get on my next one.
Dr. Eric Johnson:You get a good, hot Whataburger hamburger. Hey, that’s nice.
Randall White: I hope you both get some gift cards from the two restaurants. The whole message of this series from Dallas Love Field is “Lead with Love” What, what does that mean to you, as you’re involved at the city and in the community?
Dr. Eric Johnson: You know what? To me? Here’s what it means; and you’ll see that sort of really displayed in the new Economic Development Policy to me, leading with love, is basically looking at capturing as many perspectives as you can, giving everyone a place to play in this field. If that makes any sense, you know? So we’re everybody’s perspective and opinion basically matters and contributes because us at the city we don’t have to do it all. We just have to care enough and have enough love to be able to communicate to others that you can contribute. And how can we support doing that? That’s how we look at it.
Randall White: Well, and I tell you that for a non-profit organization that’s kind of grassroots oriented, we very much appreciate your approach to that, because you have we have shaked hands on working on this night time initiative. And we’ve also experienced the same thing from Mr. John Fortune, and that whole division of his and we want to work with you. And that’s that’s fantastic. It’s a new model. It’s collaborative. It directs across silos. I know that lead love means to me is I had somebody wants, and as a big, deep compliment, and I don’t like to talk about myself, but a deep compliment I received once was somebody called me a servant leader, and it’s that thing where you bring your best in a way that is not about self, but about the mission and our mission with 24-hour Dallas is let’s create a safer, more inclusive, more vibrant nighttime economy for residents, visitors and guests. And I love that mission.
Dr. Eric Johnson: Let me add one more piece. Love also means that I’m on Team Dallas, and we’re going to destroy the competition. Whoever the competition is surrounding us, and wanna going to compete with us, we going to show the love.
Randall White Okay, there’s that score, the competition. What sport do you do?
Dr. Eric Johnson: I’m straight up basketball.
Randall White: Okay, get it in. That’s great. Now, are there questions from the audience? In what ways is the city supporting the nighttime life right now, Dr. Johnson workers, businesses and Leisure?
Dr. Eric Johnson:, I think we are really at the baseline level right now, and it’s really looking at working to get this economic impact study done. So we can really communicate the importance of the nighttime economy and start to develop strategies to help get there. Because right now it’s a we don’t necessarily have that. And that was the purpose of really working towards getting this impact done. So we can really create some strategies.
Randall White:From my perspective you know, we’ve got so much opportunity, just like you’re talking about. We don’t have the data yet, but there’s opportunity. One of the things we’re looking at is, how can we help the entrepreneur learn all these things they have to go through to open a business in the city of Dallas. And I’m hoping I’ll be able to find somebody that will want to help us in that. And you guys are doing enough right now on the nighttime economy study and everything else you’re doing for the city. But I got to think that there is going to be somebody out there who’s going to be very interested in helping us develop a guide. I saw one of these initially in Sydney, New South Wales. It was a booklet saying, here is all the things you need to do to just open a business at night, everything from permitting and land use guidelines and who to talk to and where to go. It’s very confusing, especially if you wind up going down to Jefferson, you know the building down in Jefferson, where it’s like you walk into this monolith, and it’s intimidating. We need to break that down for entrepreneurs. So here’s another question. This is from B Bleakley. You mentioned an upcoming nighttime economic impact study. Have there been any others so far?
Dr. Eric Johnson: Well, not in Dallas, in other cities like New York and London and places like that. So we are going to catch up to these other cities and really conduct this study to help us understand.
Randall White: Yeah, and at 24-hour Dallas.org go on our web page under the resources tab, I think, is a whole system, nighttime economy, best practices and guides, Etc. and includes three or four nighttime economy studies, The one for Paris, the one for London, The one from New York City and one for Washington DC. And you can see the report. You see how extensive they were in measuring workforce. There were surprises like in London. They found out that one of the largest nighttime employment sectors was home health. So we don’t think about that. We think we don’t think about those people that are helping take care of older citizens or people in need and what are their needs when they get off work? How do we address that? It brings up Transportation issues. It brings up safety issues, and it’s so much to look at it’s so inclusive. Okay, here’s another one from Jeremy. Dr. Johnson, Is there a specific global city that Dallas proper is trying to emulate?
Dr. Eric Johnson: No, not necessarily. Because all of these cities are so different. You know, I just completed a study with Harvard on comparing cities against each other. So our comparables are not who we think they are. So we don’t really have like a city we want to emulate. We just want to be in the conversation. Like some cities have a natural brand that you know, you will go there for for businesses, relocation or whatever. Just because of the brand. And those cities are like Austin, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, DC, Boston, you know, you don’t even have to ask the question, you’re going to go there because of the brand. What we want to do is elevate the brand. So we have that name recognition. So there’s not like one we want to emulate, because we have our unique capabilities here. We just want to really capture that and be the best we can be.
Randall White: I mean, Dallas has tremendous potential to do that. To become this… There was a study recently done by Boston Consulting Group, where they looked at the most appealing cities around the planet. And they talk, they listed 45 and Dallas didn’t even make the list. And I was, so I was so upset about that. And knowing that I have a neighbor who works for that…
Dr. Eric Johnson: Well, you know what Randall? It’s not making a list, because it’s getting swallowed up in the DFW/ North Texas discussion. But yet there’s not a strong region in the country that does not have a strong core city,which we are that core.
Randall White: So that is what we have to really figure out a way to break away, break away from in terms of that’ll pull out of that Is that is that…
Dr. Eric Johnson: Well, we don’t have to. We don’t necessarily have to pull out of it. We have to raise the stakes in terms of.. everything is about competition. Everybody’s going to go after talent, everybody’s going to go after jobs, everybody going after after resources, and if cities all or surrounded around us, we have no expectation that they’re not going to be seeking to do that. Well, you just have to be able to move at a faster pace building off of our authentic pieces..
Randall White: Here’s one from Juliet; If you could wave a magic wand and change one aspect in Dallas related to the nighttime economy, What would it be?
Dr. Eric Johnson: You know what it would be? Most people would think, I would say, the entertainment scene, but I’m not going to say that I’m going to say the economic scene. I would want to see the energy of round-the-clock incubators, innovation centers. That stuff is taking place because truthfully, what is drawing the nighttime economy in places like DC and Boston and all those places, is going to be those elements. You know? And I would really like to see that where you are walking, it can be all over the city. You know, that’s what I really really would like to see. That is to me, That’s the game changer. Right there.
Randall White: I like that. I like that. I have to agree with that. You know, imagine if we had those kind of think tank incubators all over the city. That’s not. It’s not necessarily about the entertainment districts we love those We need those. We like those that helps brand
Dallas as a place to go and a place for people to enjoy, but to have that kind of Citywide thing So again, adheres people to the city to want to live here, to want to come here to want to bring the business, launch their business here. What a better place. Dallas is very business friendly, And anything we can do to grow our own would be a great thing. And absolutely here’s another great question. From Donna Is there one key age group that you are focused on growing?
Dr. Eric Johnson: Well, I know a lot of people would say that that sort of creative class group of people I’m not going to necessarily say that solo, I would say that it’s not a specific group. It’s sort of a combination of all groups that has some sort of diversity in age, skill sets, talents, ideas That is really what we should be after, you know, because too often we would say, Oh, we only want this group ranging from the ages 25 to 40 or whatever, Oh, that is doing all this great stuff. And I’m like, no, it should be about everybody in how we can sort of create that space for everybody. Really. That’s what I’m talking about.
Randall White: I agree. And it’s really more of a quilt. You know, if you go and look at our leadership on our website, you will see an amazingly talented and diverse group of folks. I’m the old guy. I go to these global conferences with all of my colleagues who work in the nighttime economy from around the world, and they’re looking at me like what’s the Boomer doing here. But I want the night to be as attractive to me as I wanted to be attractive to the 21 year-old. I just firmly believe that we can be more inclusive, Not just in terms of ethnicity, but also in terms of age and economic class and faith. You know, there’s so much we can do to kind of build together in that way. Dr. Johnson, What do Dallas residents need to know about supporting your office is doing specifically related to economic development.
Dr. Eric Johnson: One a couple of things I think are really important. It’s the launching of the new Forward Dallas plan, Right? We have not updated this plan for almost 16 years. By the time we finish it, It’ll be almost 20 years, which is really unacceptable. We have the New Economic Development policy that the council adopted unanimously back in May, which is coming with the creation of the New Economic Development entity. So by the way, all the cities around us, they have these sort of entities that can move fast to get things done. We don’t have it. We’re going to have that. You’re going to see more thoughts around how do we deal with this affordable housing crisis? We’re not talking about, you know, housing projects. We talking about regular people simply trying to make their way. So my answer, really, today is to really, you know which I think the city council is doing a great job of, I believe we have a great City council, just kind of stay tuned to the issues that we are discussing, because we have an opportunity, I believe, over the next three years or so, which I think the window is going to close. Once we come back, full blown after covid-19 we’re going to be right back into the rat race, right? Or not. We have this opportunity now to put some of these new foundational pieces in place. You know, how do we look at the nighttime economy? Now, me, development policy, new comprehensive. All of these things are coming, and they’re coming really fast, fast in a compressed period of time. And it’s all about change. It’s all about, you know, creating the type of City we want to have That’s got this balance between corporate balance between regular Community, Giving more voice for regular citizens and the planning process. Sort of a long sort of answer. But I would just say, just kind of be engaged in terms of some of the directions were going if it doesn’t sound right, let us know so we can, you know, make sure we do some tweaking along the way.
Randall White: This is a great It’s a great response, Dr. Johnson. And, and, you know, I need to get your economic development plan and park it on our website, because more people need to see and read it like we did. And another way, perhaps people can support you. And what you’re doing is by getting involved with us, because we’re going to be working with your office and working with other city of Dallas departments In this kind of volunteer private sector collaboration in some ways, And and just Just, you know, come to 24-Hour Dallas dot-org join us and then you can be more involved and more supportive. I believe, Heather is a member 24-hour Dallas so I thank her for that. Okay, here’s a question from Don “is the service industry staffing shortage impacting Dallas nightlife as it is in other cities?”
Well, I think what’s happened. I worked a lot in the restaurant industry as public affairs consultant. And what we’re seeing across the service industry is people got laid off, and the more folks got away from the service industry world in Dallas. They kind of went, you know, really, really that’s a tough job. And if you want me back, it’s going to cost you more. And it’s caused all this kind of tension between operating costs of restaurants and the needs of the individuals. But there were something that happened when restaurants in Dallas. And yes, to answer your question. Don is yes, the industry staff challenge is affecting Dallas. The city of Dallas has,as other cities, by letting people go and riffing people that gave them enough time to sit back and go, you know, really, I deserve better. And so we’re not out of the woods on that yet if you go to restaurants as often as I do, and you know, that service is kind of not as full as it used to be, or they might not be seating as many tables, even though it has nothing to do with covid. It has to do with the ability to get in staff and it’s causing a shift that’s going to trickle all the way down the economy. The economy, you know, restaurants are going to have to charge more in order to pay their employees more. They’re already stuck with the raised costs of meat and chicken and other things. And so restaurants are on the dime right now. And we need our service industry. These are folks who oftentimes this is their second job, They’re supporting families at home. We need to be mindful of them, because they’re very important. Important work force of 9 Okay. So I just got a little prompt here, and with a little frowny face and says, now is the time to say goodbye. I appreciate your time Dr. Johnson, for joining us. It’s I think it’s important for people to know you and meet you and see that the city of Dallas is focused on not only its Economic Development, and it’s housing and Neighborhood Services, which are all within your purview, But also our focus, our collaborative focus on Dallas’s nighttime economy.
Dr. Eric Johnson: Thank you for the opportunity. The questions, the discussion, I thought it was great. Any questions related to Economic Development and where we are headed at the city don’t hesitate to reach out.
Randall White: Don’t forget to check out every episode of Dallas Love Fields’ Lead with Love. Whenever you get the chance, get your podcast, share it with other people. There are some very interesting stories out there. You got to see a you saw, the one that began with Cynt from the Mavericks that’s a fantastic podcast and assure them with people head over to Apple podcast, Leave a five star rating, it’s really important to understand that and to support Love Field airport. So thank you, Dr. Johnson, Thank you to the folks behind Lead with Love and thank you for listening. Let’s make our night as vibrant as possible.
Bruce Bleakley: This is your captain speaking. As we begin our descent into Love Field I’d like to thank you for flying with us on the Lead with Love podcast. We know you have many options when podcasting. So we appreciate you choosing to listen to us. If you like our show, please subscribe, give us a five star rating and leave a review about why you love the Lead with Love podcast. And tap the share icon to send it to the people you love.
As always, I’m your Captain Bruce Bleakley. And if you’ll return your seat backs and tray tables to the fully upright and locked position we will see you aboard our next flight in two weeks.
