Envisioning New Bedford

The Downtown Land Use Plan Public Meeting held on April 28th at the Corson Building wasn't very public. Here is the flyer I picked up at the library a couple of days beforehand. It basically says that people should come for an envisioning session about how to improve New Bedford's downtown, once the true center of the city. Well it seemed from listening to them that they'd already envisioned a great deal and have started making what I'd call plans. This bothered me especially since most of the people in there were either city employees or other government representatives but definitely the "In" crowd.

Now, look. I go to these things because I never know what's going on. The Standard Times never tells you anything. They may report on a meeting but if you read those articles, you get absolutely no information from them. WBSM is a slightly better source of information but you have to stay glued to it. But it too has dropped in relevant information since they canned Evan Rousseau. So when I can attend a meeting, I will.

So because I was one of the few actual people at this meeting I felt compelled to act as a representative of "the people" and at the end of their Powerpoint presentation I balked. And you should have seen their faces when they turned to look at me. It was like I have just submerged my hand in the punchbowl thereby ruining their party. I told them that the flyer I had picked up lead me to believe that this was the beginning of something. But the Powerpoint presentation that I had just witnessed made it seem like it was the end and that they were just having this meeting on a technicality. (They have to have public meetings. It's a rule of some sort.) The presentater lady kept saying "this will" happen and "this will be" at this particular location. All of her verbage was definite and not speculative at all. So my gut feeling was that they are trying to take over New Bedford behind the backs of the public. How will they find out if they didn't go to the meeting? How can they attend the meeting if public meetings always pop up with little warning? I don't think they're taking over New Bedford because they want it. It's just to make money from it and move on. Get developers to develop more ghost housing and ghost commercial space that will just sit there unrented while they line their pockets and resumes from the deals.

They were young, relatively my age, Gen X if you will. I'm fairly certain I went to high school with Matthew Morrissey but I didn't know him then or now. I remember hearing that name float about. Anyway, these are people on the rise who are looking to cement their own futures, not protect the past or what New Bedford has always been. A small quiet city full of old people and young families.

My thinking is that downtown should be a tourist friendly place where residents of New Bedford also shop and hang out. The only place I can imagine tourists going besides the Whaling Museum is Elaine's T-shirts. And then what? Is some nuclear family from Wisconsin supposed to go bar hopping? Because that's really the only thing down there. People don't want to bring their kids to bars to eat a burger and fries. Everytime you turn around a new bar is opening and that is supposed to represent New Bedford moving up. Maybe we should change it from The Whaling City to Wino City.

Also this need of theirs to convert downtown New Bedford into one big campus says to me that they want New Bedford's downtown to be a party place. Like some kind of jacked up New Orleans. One dude (I think he's actually from the City Planner's Office) said that HE WANTS it to be a "COOL PLACE FOR COOL PEOPLE". Well I guess what exists in downtown New Bedford in the future will be whatever HIS definition of cool is. (I'm guessing it's twentysomethings who want to get bombed and pretend that they like jazz so they will seem like intellectuals.)

And that's when I flipped. No one person, or handful of people, should be engineering the cultural future of New Bedford. Not like this anyway. Let things happen organically so that the people who actually live here will decide in a natural evolutionary way what New Bedford's going to be. They're the ones who are going to have to deal with Mr. Cool's possible successes but probable failures. If a business owner builds a building for their own use and it's appropriate, it will succeed. But having developers develop shells in the hopes that businesses will eventually fill those shells is not only putting the cart before the horse but also putting all your eggs in one basket.

Using New Orleans as an example of a cool place for cool people again. Most people think of New Orleans, when not thinking of Hurricane Katrina, as a Mardi Gras festival atmosphere when you can get beads if you expose yourself. Loads of fun. (<--sarcasm) Anyway, it's a party place. An incredibly crime-ridden party place. Many people might think that New Bedford is already crime-ridden so why not party? Well, we're not even close, but it's getting there. And I personally don't think plans like this are helping. Making a section of town were the high rollers run while ignoring the everyday folks is how you get a set up like New Orleans, Las Vegas, or Rio. You wouldn't want to step foot outside the "tourist areas" in those cities. Yeah I know we're never going to be like those places, but still.

Whatever the result of these "envisionings", these envisioners will be long gone when their plans come to fruition. They'll be on to greener pa$tures, and the public that didn't go to this meeting will be stuck with what's left.