"The point is sound infrastructure leads to more prosperous places," said William H. Hudnut III, senior resident fellow of the Urban Land Institute and former mayor of Indianapolis and Chevy Chase, MD. Hudnut was the keynote speaker at yesterday's community breakfast, an annual event sponsored by the Real Estate Council. The TREC event, held at the Fairmont Hotel in the Dallas CBD, attracted 550 professionals from business and government.

Hudnut's stay included a tour of select areas of the city, taking him from lunch in Victory Park, a cosmopolitan hub that's risen from a redeveloped brownfield, to its poorest neighborhood, Jobba, where Habitat of Humanity and city leaders are diligently working on a revitalization plan. His broad assessment is Dallas is on the right track with projects like the Woodall Rodgers Park, Trinity River Corridor Vision and DART line expansions tied to transit-oriented development.

Hudnut's gold star came with a caution that, probably unbeknownst to him, carried special meaning for local politicians. "It takes leadership. You've got to have a plan and stick to it," he said. Not so long ago, some elected officials led a campaign to overturn five years of planning on the Trinity River Corridor project.