Nostalgia

It’s hard to watch your childhood hometown change. My hometown is a city now, not a bustling but moderately sized suburb as it was 50 years ago. That’s just what happens when the world gets more populated.

So I have some sympathy for those who bemoan the loss of the State Street of their childhood. But you might as well mourn the loss of rotary phones. They are gone and they are not coming back.

Since the closure of State Street didn’t cause empty store fronts or the increase in the number of unhoused people on the street, arguing that the return of cars would solve these problems makes no sense. What does make sense is to look forward rather than backward and figure out how to re-envision our downtown to be vibrant both economically and culturally.

Those who accuse the City Council of planning to do nothing for the next three years clearly are not paying attention either to City Council meetings or to the State Street Advisory Committee, both of which have been making decisions and exploring possibilities at a steady clip. City Council recently took up several recommendations from an ad hoc committee to rapidly address challenges like speeding bicycles. And they just voted to explore a complete redo of Paseo Nuevo that would include housing, mixed use, and a re-energization of a space that stopped fulfilling its mission years ago. Meanwhile the State Street Advisory Committee has heard exciting proposals about how to rethink State Street and the rest of the central business district to create a vision and design standards that would appeal to residents and visitors alike.

Nostalgia is a state of mind, and people are entitled to it. But it certainly should not determine planning for the future of our downtown.