Where we've been. Where we're going.

Have we come full circle? Is anyone else tired of going in circles?
Mad Street isn't mahvelous anymore? Are we fresh out of irrational exuberance? Where do we go from here? How does where we are square with the goals laid out in the 2000 comprehensive plan? Where did it go wrong?

Maybe investing in cosmetics was a bad plan? Shouldn't we think it through before ordering up another batch? Lucky for us, a lot of what was working before is still working. What hasn't worked is short-term cleverness and personal, inside nonsense.

Bob Haeger told me a long time ago that "Forest Park is small enough to fix and will always be worth fixing".

Thoughts?

Does the research and paperwork compiled by the 2000 plan committee still exist? Not the consultant's product. The actual work done by the committee before it was trumped by the "professionals". It's not a stretch to think that the over-riding issues haven't changed much at all. High School, Bars, Renters, Litter, Blue and Green line and Buses, Safety, Pedestrian and bicycle concerns, Mad Street, Roosevelt Rd.

So isn't the real question is whether the "progress" made in 14 years is worth the millions we've spent? What's better? What's worse? What's the same? If things are basically unchanged, just a lot more expensive, what was accomplished? Was the money spent responsibly? Sustainably?

Isn't that the criteria by which this new plan should be evaluated?

Inner ring suburbia

"Complicating matters, real estate deals tend toward simplicity: developers prefer buildings to either contain a single use, or at least to have a strong leading use. Municipalities have not always had success trying to regulate the mixing of uses: requiring developers to put in ground-floor retail space does not always work in the current market. A better alternative is to get individual deals to add up to mixed use. A flexible form-based code focusing on place, infrastructure, and urban form dovetails well with this, giving the market freedom to enable the right uses to come in. The plan should be flexible enough to accommodate changes in the market."