Yes, that's right, I'm going to say it: people need to quit their bitching. Especially townies. You know for such a supposedly tolerant, progressive, liberal town it's full of grumpy, old, reactionaries that want to freeze everything into some kind of neo-sixties paradise of some kind and I find that annoying. Townies can bitch about the lack of parking, bitch about the snotty suburbanites that drive Lincoln Navigators like they're Panzers down Jefferson Street and yes, I suppose they can bitch about drunk kids pissing on their lawns... but to bitch about the existence of the University without which this town would be little more than a hole in the ground? Come on now, townies...
Today's townie complaint centers around the explosion of 'high density housing' in the areas near downtown. 821 E Jefferson, 911 Governor and 521 E Washington St have all been targeted by developers for transformation into high density, apartment style buildings- especially the latter building helped fuel community outrage that lead to the pushing of an ordinance for neighborhoods near downtown designed to:
...to limit the number of unrelated people who can live together to three, to limit new developments to three-bedroom maximums and to require new developments to provide a parking space for each bedroom.Developers of course, try and pitch these as being for 'young professionals' but the Townies are up in arms because they're convinced beyond all reason that these are little more than dorms being planted in their neighborhoods- and do students know the dangers?
“I worry about what the students are getting for their money. Do these apartments have nice amenities or are developers just forcing bodies in just to make money? … Do students realize the safety issues of living off campus?”The dangers? Is anywhere off-campus somewhat akin to South Central or Cabrini Green? Think the so called 'dangers' are a little overblown- and probably the same as students are going to face in the big wide world anyhow- but then the article poses the question: Just who is responsible for providing housing for undergraduate anyway?
I think that statement was what ticked me off the most. I think a year in the dorms is by and large good for people but after that, college students are adults and can do and live whereever they damn well please. It's THEIR responsiblity to figure that out- not anyone elses. I don't know what it is about Baby Boomers and their constant need to infantilize the younger generation but for cryin' out loud- enough already! They're more than capable of making their own decisions on where to live.
Where this argument rolls back to saner ground is the issue of neighborhood stability and preservation- here, I'm actually somewhat sympathetic to Carlson's ideas. A lot of those neighborhoods are old, classy neighborhoods that shouldn't be treated as cavalierly as a lot of developers do- preserving the character of these neighborhoods is a fair argument to make and one I think that's worth making, but there's a fundamental disconnect that we have to address: I'm all for preserving the character of neighborhoods near downtown but Townies across Iowa City have been failing the City they claim to love so much for years. Instead of bemoaning the destruction of the past we need to fight to make the place better- not necessarily like Coralville but our own unique, prosperous place to live. That fact that the Townies haven't demanded more of that is the reason that a lot of these big, slumlord/gentrificator type developers have gotten their feet in the door to begin with.
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