City News Roundup

Futuristic robots hit the streets and more Dallas city news

Hi little robot guy.

Photo courtesy of Marble

Dallas has a new $6 million facility that will provide shelter and social services to homeless seniors. DART is seeking local art. And soon there will be robots on Dallas streets.

Here's what happened in Dallas news this week:

Robots invade Dallas
The Dallas City Council has approved a pilot program allowing the usage of robots to deliver food and other goods and services. The first entrant is Marble, a San Francisco startup whose electronically powered machines are the size of an ice cream cart and who've already tested them in cities such as Washington, D.C.

The robots will go no further than one mile from the original location and no faster than five miles an hour. The pilot program limits each company to 20 robots; Marble expects to have its fleet on the street by November 1.

Homeless seniors
The St. Jude Center celebrated its grand opening on October 12. It's a $6 million facility that will be home to more than 200 homeless Dallas residents 55 and older. The facility will deliver mental health counseling, housing assistance, recovery groups, and coaching to its residents, with the goal of returning to the workforce within two years.

Located at 2920 Forest Ln., the facility was first built in 1981 as retirement apartments. It was bought in 2017 by the Catholic Housing Initiative. The center was funded in part by a $500,000 grant from Frost Bank and Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas, and built through a partnership between City Square, Metrocare, Veterans Administrative Support Housing, Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Cop arrest
Dallas Police Department sergeant Jamie McDonald was arrested on October 13, on a charge of Injury to a Child, a first degree felony. According to a city release, McDonald was disciplining her daughter over "the use of an electronic device." McDonald has been with the DPD since 2002.

DART wants art
DART is calling for art submissions from students between Kindergarten and grade 12 to submit work to a contest titled "My Next Stop is ______." Art chosen in the contest will be featured in rail stations, buses and trains, as well as the Dallas Museum of Art, Love Field Airport, the Courtyard Theater in Plano, and on DART's website.

Winners will be announced in spring 2019. Applications sent before November 30 will receive a special prize.

Grassy knoll
A painting of Dallas' Triple Underpass — the downtown road constellation that was the site of John F. Kennedy's assassination — is for sale for the first time in 30 years. It's by Florence McClung, a painter, printmaker, and art teacher who lived in Dallas from 1899 until her death in 1992. The work is expected to sell for somewhere between $75,000 and $175,000.

Rained out
Bike to City Hall, an annual early-morning event that in which Dallas City Council members ride bicycles, got shut out by heavy rain and cold. Council members Adam Medrano, Scott Griggs, Omar Narvarez, and Philip Kingston met in City Hall's flag room to provide a special recognition to Circuit Trail Conservancy, a nonprofit partnered with the city to create The Loop, an alternative transportation model described online as a "premier urban trail network surrounding the core of Dallas" that will link neighborhoods to transportation hubs and economic centers.

Rain also shut down the 2018 Trinity River Kite Festival scheduled to take place on October 13. The Trinity River Corridor filled rapidly during high rainfall.

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Dallas climbs back up in ranking of 'World's Best Cities' for 2025

Photo by Bryan Dickerson on Unsplash

Dallas had made a major leap back into the top 50.

Dallas has made a big rebound in its status among the top 100 best cities in the world, according to a prestigious new report by Resonance Consultancy.

The Canada-based real estate and tourism marketing advisors ranked Dallas the 55th best city worldwide for 2025 in its annual "World's Best Cities" list.

A ranking of 55 might not seem all that, but it represents a major rebound after Dallas plummeted to No. 73 in last year's report. (Let's ignore the fact that, in 2022, Dallas ranked No. 47.)

London held onto its crown as the No. 1 best city in the world for 2025, followed by New York (No. 2), Paris (No. 3), Tokyo (No. 4), and Singapore (No. 5).

The report quantifies the relative qualities of livability, "lovability," and prosperity for the world's top 100 cities with metropolitan populations of 1 million or more. New to the 10th anniversary edition, Resonance partnered with global market researchers Ipsos to include perception-based data into the rankings, surveying over 22,000 people in 30 countries worldwide to determine "the most desirable places to visit, live or work."

Resonance refers to its previous "World's Best Cities" reports and its 2024 "America's Best Cities" list – which ranked Dallas in the top 20 – when explaining the city's successes. The report praised Dallas' booming population, a thriving corporate economy, and its diverse culture.

"From 2021 to 2022, Dallas experienced the largest population increase of any U.S. metro area, with a net increase of more than 170,000 people, according to the Census Bureau," the report's author wrote. "Home to more than 10,000 corporate headquarters — the largest concentration in the U.S. — the city ranks No. 33 globally for Fortune 500 companies."

Elsewhere in Texas, Austin and Houston also earned spots on the World's Best Cities list for 2025, but only one made a similar rebound from the previous year's rankings. Houston moved up from No. 66 in last year's report to its current rank as No. 40. Meanwhile, Austin took its first tumble out of the 43rd spot (which it had occupied for two years straight) and now ranks No. 53.

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