Lotzothoughtz

So about a week and a half to two weeks ago was it…Alfred Dowe resigned from the City of Roanoke’s City Council (weird of words yes, but technically it is the City of Roanoke, not Roanoke City).  It makes you wonder what other financial oddities are out there within the city, both legal and like Dowe, illegal.  

For instance the City’s “attempts” at youth retention and attraction, spear headed by Stuart Mease.  Aside from his salary (50k a year I believe) how much more money has the city slapped at this effort?  With a population that is largely under 34 years old, significantly under, the city is just slapping a bandage on a gunshot wound.   

If Mr. Mease was bringing in hundreds of kids a year, sure I’d be the first to give him an oddly long hug, but he’s not.  It’s not his fault, but going around to career fairs and area colleges only gets you so far.  With a city unable to attract new and dynamic businesses (they all go to Blacksburg these days) and seemingly incapable of mining the rich fields of thousands of college students just 45 minutes away from the city, what is the point.   

At the end of the day if you can’t bring in any new major businesses, while losing traditional businesses and/or those existing businesses weakening to a break point, you and your city are screwed.

Welcome to Roanoke. 

This is going to be short.

The Roanoke Arts Festival that was planned and bankrolled by the city was an abysmal failure with most venues not even selling half of their tickets.  However in true Roanoke fashion the City Manager Darlene Burcham and the City Council are already hot on their heels to plan the next one.  Of course we get the usual excuses as to why it wasn’t a success, not enough advertising, kinda thrown together, no youth oriented shows.  All the the usual BS with the City trying to cover their butts while they waste our tax dollars on one more useless festival that is used simply to mask the fact that City leaders never accomplish anything of consequence.

Your tax dollars at work folks, well spent?  Eh I don’t know so.

If you are a young professional, under 29, living in Roanoke it’s a bit discouraging to say the least.  Yeah, ok old people don’t get your panties in a twist as you almost always do when I bring this up.  But you are old and all of Roanoke is geared towards you, I don’t expect you to understand what I am talking about.  Although I invite you to try.

Imagine not working with a single person within three years of your age, imagine going to a coffee shop and not finding anyone close to your age and demographic, o and better yet imagine you live in a place whose "nightlife" is geared towards the old and sedate or the recently young (29+) who still think they’re cool frat guys and so go to Corned Beef to hit on their female counterparts.  Yeah…fun…eh not so much.

On top of that add the layer of the general flight from Roanoke with the newly "rich" people moving out of the city and into the County/Salem.  So this leaves you with an aging population as well as with a disproportionate level of poor families; hmm that certainly sounds like the definition of a declining area.  Know what, Roanoke fits that description.

I hate to say it, I really do, because ultimately I like Roanoke.  Despite its many flaws, it’s ridiculously useless City Council, the old hag of a City Manager, and the general misdirection of the last 20 years.  But Roanoke is in decline and I’m sure you remember from college what that means….no, really?  Don’t tell me you didn’t take Urban & Metro Politics in college. Eh don’t worry about it most people don’t, although classes that explain and show how a city/metro area works, evolves and lives should be required for those who work for local governments.  For those of you who don’t know what Roanoke’s decline means long term here it is: badness for the next 15-20 years.

If the decline continues you can expect to see declining property values citywide, with that comes more neglected or ill kept housing, with that comes crime, with that comes hard times for the working class and poorer people because like it or not criminals often target them because of access to them and the people’s access to retribution (i.e. trust/mistrust of police in some cases, or just financial ability to pursue court).  Of course all of this is worst case scenario, and you know that never happens to cities like ours, right?

Roanoke is not in a good position right now, if it were a product I’d say its losing market share to more aggressive products which, in this case, are nearby cities and counties.  What’s worse is that the leadership of Roanoke doesn’t seem to get it, they don’t see the flight of the young as something bad, they don’t realize the full extend of the long-term damage of losing people fresh out of college that run from here faster than immigrants from the border.  Things need to change or else Roanoke will end up nothing but a shell of its former self.

Roanoke has always been lacking a presence on the internet, no I’m not talking about the city site (which despite a confusing layout has someone garnered some praise) or the multiple (and annoying) big media supported sites (myhometownjobs.com).  What I am talking about are the creators, the innovators, people who aren’t big business trying to make their splash online.

I have yet to see an entirely online based business in Roanoke that wasn’t dedicated to providing services or content to businesses.

And yes what I am talking about isn’t clearly defined because that is the nature of the online world. What online business model will win in Roanoke? I don’t know. Will it be a locally grown social network? Will it be some kind of cult of personality site, with the draw being the opinions or life of a person blogging and such? I don’t know.

But I can’t wait to find out. I feel like Roanoke and the whole SW VA area is on the verge of getting a new crop of local internet innovators.

Mill Mountain Theatre is a regarded as an “institution” of sorts in Roanoke, despite dismal attendance rates.  As such most people don’t pay much attention to it, it’s always there and will be always be there right?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

Kept afloat not by ticket sales but by grants and donations from people and other organizations (like say the City) the MMT is like a welfare mother with no where left to go.  Several organizations that used to provide key grants to it, like Carilion to name one, no long supply them with those grants because of fund mismanagement by the Theatre’s management team.  Similarly several other key grantors have altered their requirements thus making finding funding much harder for MMT.

To compound this problem, MMT appears to be run in large part by disinterested parties.  What I mean is that they don’t seem to care much about the quality of their shows as much as they care about their jobs and getting paid.  My sources tell me that people directly responsible for the quality of the shows (for example sound) are left alone while customers complain constantly about issues with the quality.  I’ve been told stories of people coming into work at MMT loaded, having same sex (not that there’s anything wrong with that) affairs with managment staff, and just generally being ill equipped to fullfill their job requirements

Mill Mountain Theatre isn’t having a good go of it lately.  I wonder when they’ll go belly up.

I’ve put my most popular Roanoke related articles on their own web site, I did this quickly to put them out there because on this blog (which is newer) they aren’t up  because they are from my old blog of the same name. 

Ever since I wrote an article about the new Art Museum of Western VA people have been asking me what I really think about the building and the expansion. In my previous article I purposefully left out most of my personal right or wrong type opinions because I honestly wasn’t sure and wanted to see the bones of the building put up before I said anything concrete.

Well get ready, I’m about to pour some concrete.

The construction of this building is a gigantic waste of time, money, and a great location that would’ve housed a nice restaurant, shop, or even government agency. The design of the building is hideous, reminding me of someone killing a bunch of birds and then sticking them together in a big mass so that their wings stick out. It’s a post modern wannabe that will attract more people who just want to stare at its horrific form than who will want to appreciate it’s art.

Of course the City has helped pay for some of the building, in addition I believe it donated the land. The Art Museum of Western VA has a small and often crappy selection of art, its not like we have some great collection hiding within its walls. So to take this small collection, make a building that’ll probably be too big for it, make that building the ugliest thing constructed in Roanoke in decades (this includes the gigantic concrete mass that is the Civic Center), and set it out there for everyone to see billing it as this great thing……….is just stupid. The people behind the Art Museum, much like those behind Mill Mountain Theatre and Center in the Square itself, are horribly misguided and don’t see anything outside of their insular downtown bubble to realize how far detached they are and the downtown is from mainstream Roanoke.

Let’s hope in 10 years it has to be demolished for some reason. Until then just go to the Art Museum when you’re drunk, it’ll look prettier that way.

So, here I am now. All of the major goals in my life have now been met, I got through high school, got into a good college and got through that. Then after 4 months job searching I found a job, a job I am still in the begining phases of.

There are no more benchmarks to look forward to, no more graduations or credits to worry about. I suppose a professional system of promotions and pay upgrades will replace those things……..but it won’t be the same. Because now I’m playing for keeps, where schools and academics are forgiving the “real” world isn’t.

I got the job I wanted, I have a good government job, with good benefits, a 457 (kinda like a 401K) for godssake and am now relatively all grown up. Weird huh?

Do people actually grow up?

I don’t know, all I know is that now I have to figure out how to navigate the “real world”. I’m no longer just a political science and history student analyzing the local government based on what theories I’ve learned. Now I’m a part of that government and living the theories I only thought of before in abstract terms.

I’m excited and terrified.

Someone, somewhere once said “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and I truly believe this applies to the new building currently being built for the art museum in downtown Roanoke.  This building is seen by some as an elegant ode to modern design with graceful swooping metallic wings and by others as a tragic, hideous, and gigantic piece of shrapnel.  Which ever belief you ascribe to you cannot deny one key issue: the structure will forever alter and shape downtown Roanoke.

 Downtown Roanoke isn’t known for its architectural deviants or revelations, as far as small city downtown’s go it’s fairly on par with similar ones trying to revitalize themselves.  However, there is a general architectural unity to the downtown area.  At the economic and social core of the Center in the Square there is a modern meets quaint colonial-like feel, as the downtown spreads out that is quickly replaced by a sometimes dreary modern, utilitarian architectural feel.  Closer to the Center in the Square core than not the new art museum building promises to resemble nothing downtown.  As an art museum I assume the Art Museum of Southwestern Virginia believes it should take asthetic risks with its interior and exterior building design.  After all good art is always controversial, art sometimes seeks to destroy your preconceived notions and to hopefully open up your mind to the new possibilities that it seeks to confront you with.  So with this building the art museum no only becomes just an art museum, it becomes art itself.

 Is this the type of building that downtown Roanoke needs?  Well, maybe.  Perhaps this innovative design will spur further innovation downtown, which seriously needs some help.  Maybe it will attract interesting new businesses and spur creativity in the region, acting as a catalyst to some new, shiny, metallic future.  Who knows how this could affect the future development of downtown, in 10 years times maybe it will be a show piece of modern, “green”, innovative architecture and businesses.  Or maybe not.  What if this seemingly innovative building turns out to be failure, what if people don’t flock to the museum but avoid it because they disagree with the building.  Maybe it would be considered an eyesore and something the community will come to dislike and make fun of.  Which in turn would mean no similar development downtown, keeping it on it’s present somewhat unoffensive and kind of boring track.  Which in all likelihood would lead to stagnation at some point because people, let’s face it downtown Roanoke is an economic hub but it isn’t some packed, bustling urban core.  And that, in the future, will be a key to Roanoke’s development: urbanization/modernization or key areas of the valley.

So in the end the building of this museum, despite if it fails or flies, reminds more of what Roanoke has to be in order for it to remain relevant.