The perception however from everyone from DART to the Dallas Morning News to everyone who lives anywhere but where Rawlins and I live is that everything south of I-30 and east of Fair Park is considered “Pleasant Grove”, when it’s not. That’s an entire quarter of the city. Just like parts of west Dallas, where everything west of DTD and south of I-30 and west of I-35 is all lumped in and called “Oak Cliff”. Pentagon Parkway and 67 is NOT Oak cliff but it reported as so.

That’s what Rawlins is trying to address, at least from the eastern perspective. I DO care of you call Parkdale “Pleasant Grove”, because it’s not. It is distinct and unique and three miles north of PG. By contract, we are one mile away from Fair Park. So yeah, we care and we should raise hell about it.

I wrote that for them.

Because this careless generic use of a neighborhood name for a massive portion of Dallas has affected their property vales, thus their school funding before we even mention their individual neighborhood prides, their sense of where they live, their childhood histories. And it’s true. Picky, picky?

When a murder in another part of the city altogether is credited not only to ‘your part of town’ but said to be your neighborhood? When, therefore, a realtor refuses to show your home because it is in a ‘bad’ neighborhood when in fact your neighborhood is completely different and many miles away? C’mon folks. Be fair. It doesn’t have to be ‘interesting’ to be relevant.

I could not care less about the use of ‘neighborhood’ names and other areas of the city have their own axes to gripe. But Southeast Dallas/ Pleasant Grove is a unique situation and I hoped to explain why and how. I care when a neighborhood name …in this case ” Pleasant Grove “…is applied to 20+% of Dallas when it is in fact a 2X3 mile southernmost of 8 neighborhoods in what is properly called Southeast Dallas. Would a crime in Old Lake Highlands being reported as taking place in Lakewood go unmentioned? Of for that matter, if Lakewood was called South Dallas? One doesn’t need to split hairs here. My piece is how a quarter of this town is called in the media by the name of an area no larger than Oak Lawn.

Getting that ‘right’ is neither brain surgery nor being nit-picky. It’s simple. Otherwise, as I diagram in my piece, the chips fall where they may. And in a who, what, where and when forum of news credibility as the supposed standard…..I fail to see why this is filed under ‘who cares’. I’m proud that I chose TO care. And it’s been gratifying to hear from others who appreciated it.

PS: All knowledge is power. The original meaning of Power to the People.
Happy Monday

re Rawlins

Bottom line: When no one knows or cares where and what Pleasant Grove is, it’s convenient to use this generic geographic dart-toss default in clumsy news coverage. Meanwhile, this collaterally brands the name Pleasant Grove with an ingrained stigma taint.

1. Well, yeah, that’s it — no one outside the area really cares where every little neighborhood is. Just as, before Bush moved in, I’m betting no one in The Grove knew or cared where “Preston Hollow” is. All I really care about in reading 99% of Dallas news is a general area of Dallas (and most of the time, that really comes down to “near me” and “not near me”). I wouldn’t care if they called it “Pleasant Grove” or “Southeast Dallas”.

2. Heh. He said “taint”.

Bottom line: When no one knows or cares where and what Pleasant Grove is, it’s convenient to use this generic geographic dart-toss default in clumsy news coverage. Meanwhile, this collaterally brands the name Pleasant Grove with an ingrained stigma taint.

2. Heh. He said “taint”.