filed under Development | Economics
Providence Tomorrow Today Tomorrow and The Day After Tomorrow
2:04PM ON
02/25/2008
BY
Matthew Lawrence
I was a little early to this morning’s Providence Tomorrow charrette about the Mount Pleasant and Elmhurst neighborhoods, so I wasn’t too surprised when the parking lot at the Triggs golf course on Chalkstone was more or less empty. I mean, the postcard announcing the event wasn’t exactly eye-catching, and not many people have the time to attend meetings on Monday mornings. Plus, people with Monday mornings off probably aren’t particularly inclined to get out of bed and sit with city planners in a cold and leaky clubhouse.
But I figured I’d go and have my say about the neighborhood identity because I’ve lived in Elmhurst for three-and-a-half years and I like a lot of things about living there: wide streets with trees on them, the LaSalle Bakery, the pedestrian bridges along Pleasant Valley Parkway, the LaSalle Bakery, the abundance of convenient bus lines, the pleasant-despite-its-ugly-boxiness Mount Pleasant Library, the LaSalle Bakery, and the crazy array of houses between Chalkstone and the Parkway, where fancy 1970’s ranches sit next to cookie-cutter duplexes with paved yards. While I’d like it if the neighborhood had a decent sit-down restaurant or two–sorry, Newport Creamery and Thai Star–there’s really very little to complain about. It’s quiet, it’s close to downtown, and renting there is cheaper than Fox Point or Federal Hill.
I was a little let down, though, when about fifteen minutes after this meeting was supposed to start I realized I was the only person there who wasn’t affiliated with Providence Tomorrow. A few others filtered in–a few very talkative former City Council members from the area–but they weren’t much help because it seemed like they just wanted everyone to know what a great job they had done when they were on the city council. Even though nobody else was there.
I sat there for an hour and a half, disappointed that the Kansas City-based consultants were the only ones who tried to actually focus on anything besides graffiti. (Which, according to certain people, is apparently a major problem in the PC/LaSalle area. Who knew?)
Anyway, if you live in the area, there’s meetings scheduled through Wednesday, all at Triggs. I can’t find the actual schedule online anywhere, but you can drop in any time between (I think) 9 AM and 9 PM to talk about stuff. There’s a final presentation on Wednesday evening, and it might be nice if someone who wasn’t a (current or former) politician showed up.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:22PM
Jim Rizzo Says:
Keep the updates coming. I used to live in Elmhurst and will likely move back to Elmhurst when it comes time to buy a home. Unfortunately, I can’t make any of the charrettes, but would love to hear updates on them. I’m not surprised that very few people actually showed up.
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