Pianos Downtown

Well, ok.

Again: I'm ok with this, but we need greater economic vitality in downtown Iowa City. People bitch about the bars, but the fact of the matter is that the gentrification of downtown Iowa City over the course of the past fifteen years has essentially priced diversity out of the downtown market. We have become a collection of high-class boutiques, specialty stores, bars and restaurants that seems to produce limited economic success at best, for no other reason that people have no reason to go downtown anymore. When I was growing up, there were local businesses (like Great Midwestern) mixed with actual retail and the high end stuff. The opening of the Coral Ridge Mall changed that and instead of trying to encourage diversity downtown, the City Council seemed to have been willing to watch as high-end developers gentrified the place- to the point where the only businesses that can succeed downtown are ones that can bring in the cash- namely bars.

The other end of this is an obvious one: what are students to do? There's no movie theaters downtown anymore- no practical alternatives (i.e. something awesome like paintball or a roller disco)- the Planet X debacle of the early 00s showed just how much the University talks about alcohol-free alternatives and how little they actually do about it. To be fair: putting the bowling alley back in the basement of the IMU was probably the smartest thing the University has done in awhile. But if they're serious about providing alternatives, they need to provide some good, well-thought out ones. Committees to rally for 21-only aren't enough. Action is needed.

We need more economic diversity downtown and some real, creative alternatives. In other words: pianos and platitudes may be nice, but they're small potatoes.