On and off in recent years, I’ve written about why the city hasn’t sold off its so-called surplus properties, including old libraries and fire stations that have been replaced by bigger, brighter, shinier models and then left to rot. As Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm said one year ago, “We don’t want to just give them away.” And so they’ve become shadows of shadows of their former selves, canvases for taggers and targets for vandals.