A Softer, Gentler Farmers Branch. Or Not.

Farmers Branch has a PR problem, and they know it.

From the Dallas Morning News article:

"I think we're just kind of struggling to find something new and different that would make us stand out and hopefully entice some people to come to our city and live and work," City Council member Ben Robinson said.

I can only assume that by "something new and different," Mr. Robinson means something other than the recent concerted effort to keep illegal immigrants out of Farmers Branch that got national attention. In seeking to brand themselves as a new city ripe for development and ready for action, they have to overcome something that other burbs do not: the starkly partisan, angry image the city created for itself.

But council members said they welcome the image of being unfriendly to illegal immigrants and will continue to pursue measures targeting illegal immigrants. That's one of the quality-of-life and beautification goals the council decided on at a recent retreat.

"I don't think [that image] is something to overcome," said council member Tim Scott, who was elected in May largely because of his support for the apartment ordinance.

Oh. Well, that explains that. Although if everyone is happy about that image, I'm not sure why they need to rebrand the city.

I used to live in Carrollton, which is very near Farmers Branch. It always seemed rather innocuous. I knew it was conservative, just like most of North Dallas and the surrounding areas are, but I did not expect it to be the city that would garner national press for taking a municipal stance on a federal issue.

The focus on ideas surrounding doing something patriotic in FB is not surprising, but the ideas don't seem like necessarily actionable items. I thought there might be some sort of solid plan in place, but that was not the case: council members know they would like to revitalize some parts of the city, and plans for patriotic add-ons briefly included intentions to try and fly the largest American flag ever flown from a pole. Then they figured out that would be really expensive, so now they will probably just stick to flying large flags. Obviously, there's still some work to be done on these plans.

If, as one part of the article hints, the areas tagged for "revitalization" are in fact where all the low-income housing in town is, you can bet there will be some protracted court battles and claims of gentrification. Which is probably not the kind of press FB was hoping for.