Live in Vickery Meadow

Vickery Meadow is the apartment district east of North Central Expressway around Park Lane and Walnut Hill Lane. Building began in the mid-1970s, by Wikipedia's account for childless, upper-income renters, and the area was built out early in the 1980s, almost entirely in apartment complexes; the census survey dates 45% of the homes in the six tracts wholly inside it to the 1970s and 23% to the 1980s, and puts 81% of them in buildings of five units or more. This guide covers the Midtown Improvement District, the Vickery Meadow Public Improvement District until it was renamed, which the City established in 1993 and has renewed to 2032: about 1,289 acres in a premium and a standard service area.

The census found a district of renters and newcomers. In 2020 its blocks held 24,748 people in 12,452 homes, about 12,300 to the square mile against 3,841 for the city, and 10,180 of the 10,962 occupied homes were rented. In the six tracts wholly inside, the Census Bureau's survey counts 42% of residents born outside the United States, against 23% citywide, and 62% of those aged five and over speaking a language other than English at home: 35% Spanish and 27% another language. KERA reported in 2022 that residents speak almost 70 languages, with refugees from Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nepal, Iraq and Afghanistan, and that resettlement agencies find apartments there for arriving families. The City's grocery layer lists Abeba Foods, the Myanmar Store and Desi Grocery on Shady Brook Lane.

The rents are the picture, and they sit below the city's. Median gross rent in the six tracts runs $989 to $1,195 a month, against $1,472 for Dallas as a whole; the two tracts only partly inside, on the district's western side, run $1,754 to $2,041. Zillow's rent index for ZIP code 75231, which holds the whole district and more, was $1,328 in August 2026, up 1.2% on the year. Lower rents are not light ones here: median household incomes in the six tracts run $39,776 to $52,370, and of renters whose share could be computed, 51% pay 30% or more of their income in rent and 20% pay half or more. One household in five has no vehicle.

The sources count the district differently. The City says it holds 11,929 multifamily units, the census counted 12,452 homes, and Wikipedia gives 15,500 apartments and 2,300 condominiums at build-out and 40,646 residents in 2004, on 2.86 square miles where the City's two areas add to about 2.0. What the figures do not show is the state of the buildings: KERA's 2022 report described tenants living with mice, leaks and mold, and a City lawsuit over code violations at two complexes.

The district's levy falls on the few owners too. The 2020 census counted 782 owner-occupied homes. Zillow's typical condominium in 75231 was $105,491 in August 2026, down 9.7% on the year; on the 2025 rates a homestead at that value owes the five taxing units about $1,040 a year, none of it to Dallas ISD because the school exemption exceeds the value, and the premium area's 10 cents per $100 adds about $105. The district's 2026 plan spends a quarter of its $2.03 million on public safety, patrols on the SoPAC Trail among it; the arithmetic of the five taxes is on the Dallas page. Park Lane station, at the premium area's western edge, and Walnut Hill station, in the standard area to the north, are both on the Red and Orange Lines.