City Centers

In class yesterday, we were comparing and discussing the cities of Amsterdam, Los Angeles, New York, and Fort Wayne. This tied in nicely with my community project because we were focusing on city centers and a lot of my interviewees have talked about downtown Fort Wayne. After reading an article by Edward Soja titled "The Stimulus of a Little Confusion", I discovered that Amsterdam seems like the most ideal place to live out of these four cities because of it's city center. The squatter movement that occurred there has placed a diverse group of people from different economic backgrounds into this space, who are able to thrive on a more under the radar economic market. In Amsterdam, you don't have to be super wealthy to live in the downtown space, because the city has compromised with the people and allowed the squatter movement to occur and for people to lay claim to housing. Los Angeles is missing a strong and vibrant city center, and is having more difficulty solving the problem of the widening gap between the rich and the poor. In New York, one can also see this wide gap.

So what about Fort Wayne? In my latest interview for my project, I discovered that housing or where people live is very important to city development. According to John Felts of Visit Fort Wayne, only 3% of people who work in downtown Fort Wayne live downtown. In my interview with him he stated that: 

"Fort Wayne is undergoing big changes right now, especially downtown. The downtown riverfront development will transform our city forever, as shopping, dining, and trails will be added alongside our rivers, which will bring more people downtown.  

While riverfront development may take several years to build, Fort Wayne is moving its efforts to increase downtown living. Locals want to see more downtown dining, shopping, and entertainment, but the lack of “feet in the streets” has slowed the process. More people are visiting downtown, there’s no question about it, but we still have ways to go. Once living comes to fruition and there is more consistent foot traffic downtown, I believe the dining, shopping, and entertainment will quickly follow."

I agree that to have a thriving city center, it's vital to have people living in it. The question will be what kinds of new housing will be available and who will be able to afford it? Will Fort Wayne follow Amsterdam's lead and have a diverse population of people living in downtown or will it cater to the wealthier population in order to bring more money into downtown? Another one of my interviewees, Isabelle Kauffman stated " My mom and I talk about all the time that if they really want people to move to the downtown area, then they need to have a grocery store in that area" So affordable housing and businesses to support the people who live there, like grocery stores, can help bring people back to downtown Fort Wayne so that it can develop in other areas, such as entertainment and dining.