Parking

It's the best kept secret in Iowa City right now that they're planning to take the Old Capitol Ramp and the Dubuque Street Ramp to 24 hour parking. It appears the City is trying to keep this on the down low because I expect when they do officially announce it, people are going to be pissed.

I give up. Is this a massive inconvenience to me on a personal level? Yes. So while I was seriously toying with the idea of storming the barricades and launching petitions and giving the City Council a piece of my mind, I'm not going to.

Parking in downtown Iowa City is never going to be easy. We just don't have the acres of room that Coralville does and we don't have the luxury of building parking for everybody. I get that. But we shouldn't be going out of our way to make it harder either. All the economic planning and fancy development goals in the world can't make up for the fact that when push comes to shove, people go for convenience. If Iowa City wants to make a visit to the proctologist more appealing than trying to find parking downtown, then people will go to Coralville, where it's free.

I want to support my community. I want to spend my money in my community. And while I question the wisdom of trying to bring every new, hip, upscale retail chain downtown I'm getting sick and tired of the policies of (yes, I'm going to get all lefty on you kids, brace yourselves) gentrification that have changed downtown over the past decade, decade and a half. The community is being pushed out of it's own downtown in favor of some cracked vision of steel and glass yuppie towers for the one percenters who want a slice of the big city in downtown.

I give up...