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Saturday, Jan. 26, 2013 | 2 a.m.
The gulf between Iowa City, Iowa, and Las Vegas spans culture, politics, education and about every demographic imaginable. Just compare the Google Earth satellite images of the two. Iowa City is seated within the deep green of a virtual shire, surrounded by perfectly patchworked acres of farmland. Las Vegas is a light green surrounded by jagged mountain crests and the scorched-earth brown of a Mordor, J.R.R. Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth. And while Iowa ex-pats populate Las Vegas, they’ll tell you there’s little like our strip-club billboards, wanton imagery and all, decorating the rural routes and highways of the Hawkeye ...
After nine months of living in Downtown Las Vegas, walking the streets of Fremont East, hanging out @ The Beat, attending community events such as usr/lib and reading endless media spin about the re-*anything* of Downtown Las Vegas, this article brings me to the bitter end of my curiosity about Tony H & TDP and all media fantasies regarding what is coming down around here.
All I want now are facts. I want facts that follow the money. I want a long, boring article that describes in detail what is *actually* happening downtown -- I want to know who owns the empty lots, the boarded-up properties, any businesses that are for sale & the names of planned new businesses; I want street addresses and what their current status is. I want to see a list of exactly what Tony H. is spending money on and exactly how much money, and I want someone to prove to me how that relates to these ludicrous fantasies of re-development I keep reading about.
TDP's website doesn't offer many facts at all along these lines. I see only more hype & advertising. Is this information brilliantly summarized @ City Hall somewhere? I doubt it.
No offense to Mr. Gould or to Mr. Shieh, but I'm sick of all the spin and magical thinking. I want to know precisely what is going on around here.
UNLV HAS A GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE AND THEY HAVE URBAN DESIGN STUDIOS DOWNTOWN AT THE CITY OF LAS VEGAS HISTORIC FIFTH STREET SCHOOL SINCE 2000. THESE STUDIOS HAVE WORKED WITH THE LAS VEGAS REDEVELOPMENT AGENGY WHO HAS GRANTED THEM MONEY TO STUDY AND DESIGN VARIOUS FEATURES. THE CITY STARTED REDEVELOPMENT IN 1986 BEFORE TONY WORE SHOES.
I might have finished college if they would've offered classes like this!