Downtown's Image: A message to city hall
There is a bit of discussion going around about the negative viewpoint that we are describing on these pages (MetJax Forums).Most of the people on these forums are tried and true urbanites. Homeless people, panhandlers and people talking to jesus with invisible handsets are no big deal to us.Insanely idiosyncratic details that take years to absorb in order to deftly navigate the quirky twists and turns of a downtown are obviously not a sticking point to any of us. The proof is in the pudding that we are hereWe all know where the parking spaces are downtown (or most of us do) The hidden lots, the professional garages, the broken meters the streets that the bastards on golf caddies don't go on, and who is out of town for a couple of weeks and doesn't mind letting us use their parking spaces.A few of us have even mastered the trick of using our cars with FCCJ parking decals in order to park at FCCJ and ride the monorail.We know on which streets the loose of bladder and goosey of bowel prefer to spray down the concrete with their gastric effluvia and we avoid them----we suffer under no soon to be crushed illusion that 'right around the corner in an unsuspected place there is a totally unheard of coffeehouse that we would have missed if we hadn't pressed on a block more....'We all are like urban MeerCats, scrappy adventurous (after our own fashions) adapters who sometime long ago lost our scream reflex at the mere sight of the odd or even horrific.However, as a population, we are paltry.
Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/content/view/246
Great article. There are certainly hoards of people out there less tolerant of some of downtown's issues, especially with the suburbs offering "problem-free" experiences right next to home.