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2020 Research Prize
Reclaiming Black Settlements: A Design Playbook for Historic Communities in the Shadow of Sprawl

Historic Black settlements in urban contexts across the United States are subjected to environmental and industrial hazards that jeopardize their health and survival. This project will bring together faculty and students in architecture, landscape architecture, planning, policy, and historic preservation to develop a design playbook particular to the needs of historic Black settlements in Dallas-Forth Worth that are exposed to risks of top-down development in the wake of explosive urban development and sprawl.

Diane Jones Allen
University of Texas at Arlington
Program of Landscape Architecture

Austin Allen
Kathryn Holliday
University of Texas at Arlington
School of Architecture

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Joppa/Joppee and the Trinity River’s Chain of Wetlands with downtown Dallas in the distance. © Kathryn Holliday.

Jury
David Brown
Justin Garrett
Iker Gil (Chair)
Arathi Gowda
Toni L. Griffin
Doug Voigt

Historic Black settlements in urban contexts across the United States are subjected to environmental and industrial hazards that jeopardize their health and survival. In a pattern repeated in city after city, these settlements developed in flood plains or “Bottoms” along rivers and creeks in ”throwaway” land deemed uninhabitable by white city planners. Today, as riverfronts become desirable property located along recreational waterfront trail systems and brownfield developments become increasingly common in urban centers, these longstanding communities face new development challenges in the context of urban sprawl. In Dallas-Fort Worth, historic Freedman’s Towns along the banks of the Trinity River all face similar challenges: how to promote new development that serves community residents, respects descendants of community founders, and gives control over design and decision making to grass roots organizations. Questions about the role of environmental justice, historic preservation and economic development in shaping the future of historic Black settlements are central to defining an equitable future.

This project maps the commonalities and challenges of Black settlements along the Trinity while also focusing closely on the Joppa/Joppee community to develop a holistic community design playbook. Through partnership with the South Central Civic League, the research team will develop best practices for negotiating complex regulatory policies, with techniques and strategies transferable to other communities impacted by long-standing patterns of structural racism. With a focus on grass-roots storytelling and capacity building, the design playbook will center the voices of Black communities in design decision making processes in a complex and fragmented policy landscape.

Nature and industry in Joppa/Joppee’s river landscape. © Google Earth | Map by Kathryn Holliday.

This project will bring together faculty and students in architecture, landscape architecture, planning, policy, and historic preservation to develop a design playbook particular to the needs of historic Black settlements exposed to risks of top-down development in the wake of explosive urban development and sprawl. To develop the playbook we will look at contemporary and historic land use patterns, environmental and ecological challenges, population movement, community organization, zoning patterns, economic development policies, and patterns of demolition and preservation of historic structures and landscapes. Our study area is the watershed of the Trinity River in the Dallas-Fort Worth, which spans just under 100 miles. Historic Freedman’s Towns, Black settlements founded by formerly enslaved Texans, dot the river banks, from Joppa to The Bottom, Elm Thicket, Bear Creek, Mosier Valley, and Garden of Eden. Each of these historic settlements survives today and they are effected by similar issues of environmental racism and outside development pressure. However, they are located in different cities and counties and governed by different local policies controlling land use, zoning, development, and preservation. Alone, each singular community faces significant hurdles to achieving equitable development—collectively, they gain significant strength.

A potential solution is a design playbook that standardizes the approach to common issues: vacant land, demolition of historic structures, lack of community development guidelines, environmental hazards from flooding and industrial land use, and development pressure from coming recreational trail planning along the Trinity River. Capacity building in fragmented community organizations is a key goal. Through the School of Architecture and Program in Landscape Architecture, an interdisciplinary studio, community workshops, and a symposium organized through the Dillon Center will provide the framework for the research project. Across the one-year timeline, a research group composed of the three faculty members and three graduate student research assistants as well as community members from the South Central Civic League will collaborate to develop the playbook.

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From The Bottom to Dallas. © Kathryn Holliday.

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From Garden of Eden to the Trinity River. © Kathryn Holliday.

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The Trinity River across the Bottom to Fort Worth. © Kathryn Holliday.

Black Settlements flourished along the Trinity River bottomlands from Fort Worth east to Dallas. © Google Earth and USGS Watershed | Map by Kathryn Holliday and William Dibble.

More on this Project

Scudder, Charles. “‘A source of pride’: Historic school in Joppa neighborhood to become new community center.“The Dallas Morning News, July 12, 2021.

“Reclamation tour provides an opportunity for CAPPA to redesign historic Black settlements.“ The University of Texas at Arlington, June 22, 2021.

Samsel, Haley. “Historic Black communities in Texas face steep challenges. UT Arlington wants to help.“ Forth Worth Star-Telegram, June 18, 2021.

Lamster, Mark. “Reckoning with Joppa.“ The Dallas Morning News, September 23, 2020.

Achigbu, Tritima. “CAPPA students, faculty aim to preserve a school in the historic black neighborhood of Joppa in Dallas.“ The Shorthorn, March 20, 2020.

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Diane Jones Allen
University of Texas at Arlington
Program of Landscape Architecture

Somf 2020 research prize jones allen holliday headshot 04

Austin Allen
University of Texas at Arlington
School of Architecture

Somf 2020 research prize jones allen holliday headshot 06

Kathryn Holliday
University of Texas at Arlington
School of Architecture

Diane Jones Allen

is Program Director and Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Texas at Arlington. She is Principal Landscape Architect with DesignJones LLC, which received the 2016 American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Community Service Award. In 2017, she participated on the ASLA Blue Ribbon Panel on Climate Change. She also serves on the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) Board subcommittees on the diversity and climate. Jones Allen is author of Lost in the Transit Desert: Race Transit Access and Suburban Form, Routledge Press, 2018, and coeditor of Design as Democracy: Techniques for Collective Creativity, Island Press 2017.

Austin Allen

has participated in the recovery effort in New Orleans, rebuilding community, engaging students in design projects, particularly in the Lower Ninth Ward, linking disaster recovery to a greater awareness of climate change. These works tie into the award-winning landscape architectural firm, DesignJones LLC, with Diane Jones Allen, which received the 2016 ASLA Medal of Honor for Community Service Award. As an Associate Professor of Practice in the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Arlington, he engages in projects in South Dallas including Joppa/Joppee. His creative work includes the film “Claiming Open Spaces,” which examines culture and the African American use of urban open space. He received the 2017 Distinguished Alumni of the Year Award from the College of Environmental Design, University of California Berkeley.

Kathryn Holliday

is an architectural historian whose research and teaching focus on the built environment in American cities. She studied architecture, art history, and environmental studies at Williams College and the University of Texas at Austin and she brings this interdisciplinary approach to the classroom and to her writing. She is Professor of Architecture and Director of the Dillon Center for Texas Architecture at the University of Texas at Arlington. Her most recent book is the collection The Open-Ended City: David Dillon on Texas Architecture (2019) and she is at work on a Telephone City, exploring design, infrastructure, and the history of telephone buildings.

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