Free Parking, Then What?

As our glorious leaders continue their policy of yuppification and immolation in downtown Iowa City, I wrote (and thought it was worth pointing out) that making parking more difficult in downtown Iowa City is unlikely to bring the community back downtown in droves anytime soon. The Quiet Man (as he does sometimes) took the opportunity to put in his own two cents worth and as usual, makes a couple of good points that are worth exploring and expanding on. (I'll get to that in a minute...)

But, let's say that we do get free parking- on weekends, all day everyday, whatever. What then? At this point, Iowa City can't- nor should it attempt to- be Coralville or North Liberty. But plainly the situation downtown isn't working anymore. (It probably is working quite well for the Development Cartel that is erecting glass and steel condos by the bucketloads, but not really for anyone else.)

So what to do? Free parking may be a big juicy incentive to get people back downtown, but they won't stay that long if there's nothing much for them to do there. Although The Quiet Man tends to sneer at Coralville's sometimes crass, unapologetic capitalism and it's over abundance of 'Big Box Retail' my own personal failing is that I tend to favor pragmatism over ideology in all things. I could give a damn where I shop at, as long as it's cheap and has what I need- which is essentially the attitude of pretty much every other person in the world. Nobody is going to trade in their deep-fried lard for vegan veggie goo anytime soon and neither are they going to spend ludicrous amounts of money on hand-stiched hemp woven t-shirts when they could spend $10 and have a perfectly serviceable t-shirt from Wal-Mart. So, apologies to The Quiet Man, but 'Big Box Retail' is here to stay.

But will it work in Iowa City? Here The Quiet Man raises some good points. Coralville got the Mall, cleaned up the Strip and has the luxury and the space to plot residential and further commercial growth around those two zones. Iowa City doesn't have that luxury- and at this point, the 'Big Box' battle is over and Coralville has won. You can't slap a Dress Barn, a Target or a Kohl's smack in the middle of downtown Iowa City- it just won't work anymore. Parking would be too much of a pain in the ass. Property taxes would be too high. Coralville was essentially the garden shed Iowa City kept in it's huge-ass back yard- it had- and continues to have space to put the 'Big Boxes' in whereever it wants.

However, I'm not willing to give up the ghost on getting some retail back to downtown Iowa City yet. Leave the 'Big Boxes' out in Coralville- but let's take a hard look at the demographics of downtown: college students, assorted yuppies and nearby- the run of the mill whitebread, middle class members of Iowa City that currently do all their shopping in Coralville. I'm not going to argue that we should bulldoze Van Allen Hall and build a shopping mall downtown. But with some careful incentives the right chains downtown could be successful. Which is pretty much all downtown needs. If Mama Middle Class out on Green Mountain Drive can park for free on Saturdays and nip down to an Old Navy downtown to get Little Johnny some cheap-ass jeans I'd bet she'd rather do that than drive her ass out to Coralville. The Quiet Man says he misses being able to 'get things on the East side'- clothes might not be what he had in mind and we shouldn't confine ourselves to clothing retail, but I'm sure someone in Iowa City would appreciate a clothing option or two downtown. (And for the record, The Quiet Man totally underestimates the appeal of jeggings- of any size!)

But this debate is about more than just downtown. For all the fuss and bother about 'the future of downtown' our glorious leaders tend to forget that there are other places which could be developed in Iowa City. If the Development Cartel wants to yuppify downtown, let it. (Has Moen sold all the condos in the Plaza Towers?) It's better to cede that Territory than to start messing around with property taxes and risk them invoking, as The Quiet Man rightly points out- the grand American tradition of bitching about how high taxes are.

So what, concievably can Iowa City do the spur development elsewhere? What made this place great back in the day was a nice balance between retail you could use, restaurants/bars, small local business and community attractions (including not one, but two theaters downtown- and Aladdin's Castle. That placed kicked ass.) That kind of a diverse wide range of smaller shopping options closer to home could provide a counter-weight to the 'Big Box' mentality of Coralville. But the City Council would have to hold the line against further yuppification (a dim prospect) and think about areas other than downtown (an equally dim prospect.)

It's not all bleak though: Towncrest is set to get a gradual facelift to make the place look a little nicer. 1st Avenue on the east side is finally going to get that rail underpass which should solve a lot of traffic problems- but why stop there? Instead of merely trotting out the 'once in a decade' plan for south of Burlington, why not actually implement it? Stop pissing around with passenger rail (Megabus is too cheap and a top speed of 80mph is not high speed, so let's stop pretending that it is) and start developing that green space around the old water plant. Give Gilbert Street a facelift. Give Highway 6 a facelift- add better sidewalks, more lighting and make that end of town look nice for once. It's well within the City Council's purview to do so- and the more of Iowa City looks nice, the more likely people are going to want to open a business here.

Do I think a fresh coat of asphalt and some fancy streetlights are going to be the answer to all our woes- such as they are? No, of course not- but a few facelifts around the place would be a big help- and might encourage economic growth to occur all by itself- which would be the best possible outcome I think. (The development and growth in the Northside Neighborhood is a great example of this.) Make some places look nice, hold the line against yuppification and we'll get closer to that ideal of a wide, diverse range of shopping options in Iowa City- which is an identity I believe our community would happily embrace (the smaller, locally owned alternative to Coralville) and could prove to be a key component in the further economic development in the wider metro area in Johnson County.