The city of Fresno met with Forest City Development Friday. Officials hope to bring some big name stores to Downtown Fresno.
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The city of Fresno met with Forest City Development Friday. Officials hope to bring some big name stores to Downtown Fresno.
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This newest re-development plan is just another attempt by the elected representatives of big business to convert limited public revenues into personal "profits." They want to concentrate public funds into large, difficult to control and oversee projects that lend themselves to cronyism if not corruption, then at least the apperance of corruption.
These grand schemes have not worked very well in the past for the betterment of downtown Fresno. Just look at the last 30 years of fear, prejudice and "white flight" that fueled the Northward movement of Fresnans Northeast to Clovis. That is the problem with downtown. Not redevelopment. The problems are social and economic. You can't send one generation in one direction based on fear, half-truths and stereotypes; and then expect the next generation to "rebuild their beloved downtown."
Perhaps Fresno leaders need to deal with the blight and unwelcome atmosphere created downtown by the railroads, heavy industry and the traffic patterns that make north-south inner city access difficult if not impossible to the areas in the community that need to be developed to create a "downtown community."
Just one example coud be to develop the open space south of Fresno and to the East side of 99. That could be the "New Downtown Community." Golden State Bulouvard needs to be just that, a "Golden Bulouvard" to where the people of downtown Fresno live. The infrastructure for the community is there, but now it is just plain ugly! For example, Van Ness could lead the residents of the New Community pleasantly over the railroad tracks and the industrial areas cleaned up and or screened from view to a thriving downtown commercial area. That's where the millions of dollars to improve downtown Fresno should go - toward creating an on-going enterprise and tax base. People need to live in the community first. And it needs to be stylish to live there.
Another area ripe for the "New Community," could be the area between Highway 99 and Highway 41 to the South of Fresno. The infrastructure is there as well.
All that is missing is a vision that lacks the prejudice, fear and mistrust that was used in the past "Downtown Redevelopment Projects."
Fresno of the future will be much bigger than most people envision. Just look at the new freeways bringing Madera, Sanger, Kerman and Selma into the Fresno Community. And the ideas that everyone has of Downtown Fresno so far have been limited to an attempt to recreate a time that has past. The new vision needs to embrace changes that have happened and incorporate those changes into future plans. Downtown Fresno shouldn't look like a war zone after a war and where the victors didn't even want it after they won... It needs to be treated more as a municipal museum of the past two centuries and proudly so by doing things tastefully and proudly and not just for quick private gain!
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