By Brantley Hargrove / Unfair Park

There's trouble brewing in the land of lofts, bros and trolleys. Owners of Uptown spots such as Thomas Ave. Beverage Company, The Nodding Donkey and Si Tapas say they're getting squeezed by irascible homeowners who've had whole swaths of Thomas Avenue and Allen Street designated for residents only, leaving patrons with nowhere nearby to park. And they're afraid it's going to get worse.

"This thing is going to spread all around Uptown, which is gonna be terrible for business," says TABC owner Russell Hayward. "We've been trying to be cooperative and conciliatory, but they're just trying to shut us down."

McKinney Avenue-area establishments like TABC don't have big asphalt lots to accommodate patrons, so they're zoned for street parking. "The intent of that is to rely on the neighborhood for street parking," Hayward says. "The reason they did that was to entice people like me to open businesses where there is no parking. That was fine for 17 years.

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by MONIKA DIAZ / WFAA

Posted on January 13, 2012 at 10:56 PM

DALLAS - Troy Parker thought he hit the jackpot when he found a parking spot on Allen Street in Dallas' Uptown neighborhood, but he soon noticed the new signs posted on the popular strip.

"5 p.m. to 2 a.m. - We are right in that window, aren't we?" Parker said. "I will be looking for [the signs.]"

One said of the 2300 block of Allen made the switch last December after homeowners on the street took their concerns to the city. The section is now zoned residential parking - permit required, from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m, every day of the week.

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Inga Saffron, Philadelphia Inquirer Architecture Critic

This has not been a good year for despots. North Korea's Kim Jong Il met his maker, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak is under arrest, and Syria's Bashar al-Assad faces a future that looks rocky. But in Philadelphia, City Council members get to rule their districts with an iron hand - at least for now.

Philadelphia is one of a dwindling number of big American cities where local legislators adhere to a courtly tradition called councilmanic prerogative. Like its royal antecedent, the prerogative grants the city's 10 district Council members the right to do as they please in their own patch. Whatever the measure - a history plaque or a major zoning change - the rest of Council will rubber-stamp it, knowing the favor will be returned.

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When Dallas is way behind Philadelphia in anything (especially football games), you gotta know it's really bad here. - BD

The Lakewood Advocate's resident curmedgeon blogger, Jeff Siegel, is best remembered by his dozen or so loyal readers as saying that BD's 15 minutes of fame were so way up a few years back. Well, both of us are still blogging, but BD ain't the one wearing a tie.

That said, his comments on the recent Trader Joe's coming to Lowest Greenville announcement actually have a few points that merit attention. His information pretty much is confirmed by BD's sources, so we are taking the lazy way out and linking to his story

The parking issue is one BD has heard the most comments about. Considering that many of the area streets are already Resident Parking Only at night, we are only a hop-step-and-a-petition-drive away from asking for 24/7 RPO. But considering that Whole Foods parking on residential streets was only an issue on Thanksgiving weekend, that does not seem likely.

Here's hoping the other shoe will drop on the Whole Foods property (any shoe will do) and soon. Buh-bye Wal-Mart, hello god knows what Mitchell Get The Hell Out of My House Rasansky will bestow on Lowest Greenville.

Trader Joe's, Lower Greenville, and the new Dallas

Everyone I talked to yesterday — and I talked to a lot of people in the real estate and grocery businesses — had the same reaction to the news that Trader Joe's would open its first Dallas store on Lower Greenville. Shock. Surprise. Incredulity, even.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that reaction was our problem. We were surprised because we expected something else to happen because we're used to something else happening. Big-time, desirable national retailers don't open in our neighborhood. They open in the Park Cities or Preston Hollow or Far North Dallas. But not here. We have crime. We have people who don't look like TV commercials. We aren't demographically perfect.

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