The community organizers behind the Better Block projects and the nonprofit Go Oak Cliff have quit their day jobs.
Jason Roberts and Amy Cowan are in it for profit now. These neighborhood leaders formed a company, Cowan Roberts LLP, to bring their ideas and skills, including public relations and fundraising, to other parts of Dallas and the world.
“We’ve been talking about it for about a year now,” Cowan says. “How can we improve the neighborhood and keep doing what we’re doing, and make a living for ourselves.”
Roberts also has formed an urban planning consulting firm, Street Space Collaborative, with neighbor Andrew Howard and civil engineer Luis Salcedo, who is a former Oak Cliff Chamber board president.
Street Space already has a client — the City of Dallas. The city is paying $19,000 for Street Space to study safety and traffic changes to the Tyler/Davis area. We’ll have more on that this week.
By the way, Roberts and Cowan are two of the nine partners in Oddfellows restaurant.