Speaking of the trivial and the mundane, it’s often the little things that keep a good city from becoming great. What attracts folks who could choose to live anywhere? How do companies with young professionals decide to locate where they do? And what keeps the upwardly mobile in place once they’ve arrived?
These are folks with means and aspirations. In the digital age they can put down roots anywhere and digi-commute if necessary. How do they make decisions about where to domicile they’s bad selves?
Generally speaking, if you can live anywhere, you choose to live where it’s exciting and stimulating to live. A vibrant arts and music scene. Funky, interesting nightlife. Diverse cultural events. Hubs of activity, especially downtown. Unpredictably cool traveling shows that stop through unexpectedly. Green space and parks that allow for quiet reflection. Hot spots that melt your face off. A pace that can be slow or lightning quick, whatever the mood strikes. Institutions with innovative, creative leadership that never cease to thrill and amaze. Great intellectual culture, often driven by a university and a great library system.
Why would you pick Toledo? Look back over the list. Toledo kills some of them, and the rest are either on their way or doable. So let’s do this, y’all! What d’ya think? Can we be the next great American city?
Car show
That brings us to potholes. Geez, are we tired of talking about potholes. And the cars they destroy. You’d think it was the only thing keeping us from greatness. It isn’t. But it leads naturally to the one thing that really toots the pooch in T-Town.
Getting Around
The young and hip want options. They aren’t wedded to the car culture that so enthralled the generation on its way out the door. They want their downtown venues to be walkable. They want to be able to commute by bike. They want to be able to connect the dots.
And that’s where Toledo is stuck in the 1950s.
We’ve totally missed the boat on infrastructure investment. The Marina District’s Road to Nowhere is only the start of the problem. There are bike paths to nowhere all around town. We have a slipshod assortment of weird little bike lanes that don’t connect into anything. Attempts at a comprehensive bike plan ran aground on the shoals of a backward looking City Council. Meanwhile the brave souls who bike regularly take their lives into their own hands navigating the roadways of Toledo. Relief for bikers is nowhere in sight. Instead we worry about parking options for the oil-eating dinosaurs.
Get on it
Pedestrians hardly fare better. Downtown has been so chopped up by misguided development that it is more like three separate downtowns. The convention center, arena, and ballpark have cut off large sections that should be ripe for accelerated hot spot development. Instead we have a few blocks of walkable nightlife separated by blocks of wasteland. Pedicabs can only do so much to make up for the lack of urban planning.
Transit? TARTA is making strides to connect and organize the system. But added night service routes will assist in getting the city hopping. Ditto for holidays and weekends, festivals and other fantastic activities. Leadership at TARTA, has moved us along down the road, but more will be better.
Cabbies complain about unfair competition from Uber. But Uber is exactly the point. Easy to use, on-call transportation that takes you from point A to point B where and when you want. Rather than fight it, the rest of the system should take a lesson and adapt.
Toledo can be on the cusp of greatness. There are visionary leaders at key institutions. Private investment is starting to roll in. Positive energy is building.
Now we need to figure out how to better move it.
Or rest assured, we risk losing it.
