News

Leadership must emerge for the good of downtown

As many people now know, my wife Catherine and I are closing our business of 14 years. While much has been made of our decision in the media, we have decided to close shop for a number of reasons, many of them purely personal and unrelated to the current state of affairs in downtown Lafayette. I remain a strong proponent of the critical importance of the development and maintenance of a vital urban core. I think it will be a key factor in Lafayette becoming a great American city.

As many people now know, my wife Catherine and I are closing our business of 14 years. While much has been made of our decision in the media, we have decided to close shop for a number of reasons, many of them purely personal and unrelated to the current state of affairs in downtown Lafayette. I remain a strong proponent of the critical importance of the development and maintenance of a vital urban core. I think it will be a key factor in Lafayette becoming a great American city.

There is a sea change occurring in the way modern cities now grow and develop. In the mid 20th century, if a young person wanted to establish a career within a major industry, he or she likely gravitated toward New York, Detroit or Los Angeles. This is no longer the case. As Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class, points out, today's young movers and shakers are motivated more by lifestyle, and that lifestyle necessarily includes an environment with a high tolerance for diversity in terms of people's personal preferences and predilections.

Austin, Texas, is a nearby example. It is a city that celebrates and embraces its self-styled "weirdness." It is also a churning economic engine because the jobs follow the people. The great American cities of the 21st century will be the ones that embrace this concept. And there are not - and never will be - any great American cities without great downtowns.

This is first and foremost an economic development issue. Downtown Lafayette has many of the components necessary to become a truly vibrant center for art, commerce and entertainment. But there is one component that we have failed to pursue, and it is by far the most critical: the development of a strong residential presence. Without this, we will never achieve the type of urban sophistication needed to attract the world to our door step. We may remain as Lafayette's playground, a venue for festivals and cultural events and bar hopping, but these things create little in the way of sustainability. And if downtown is allowed to merely limp along, the city will continue its ongoing drift to the suburban south, leaving its north side and downtown a carcass. And the suburbs do not attract the creative class.

A downtown residential base will address a lot of problems we have been struggling with for many years now. It will establish a neighborhood, and like neighborhoods everywhere, it will create and impose standards. A neighborhood will demand that the many types of downtown commerce and activity adjust themselves to the needs and wants of a residential community. Trash, noise, vagrancy and disruptive behaviors will be met with consequences. Our innovative fiber infrastructure will be so much economic putty in the hands of the burgeoning creative class; we will become nationally and globally competitive. But this brave new world of alphas, artists and entrepreneurs will demand a very specific environment in which to live and play. And that place can only be downtown.

If this is to happen, Lafayette's leadership needs to make this one of the highest priorities on its economic development agenda. Incentives must be invented and adopted to lure developers. There are city-owned properties downtown that are not utilized, including abandoned asbestos-ridden buildings begging to be razed. The triangular block bounded by Jefferson, Main and Lee streets where the old federal courthouse and former public library now sit has been a candidate for a city/private sector development endeavor for a number of years now. Alas, our city-parish council does not seem to see the wisdom in dedicating city assets toward semi-private development. Instead, it wants to save the site for a new municipal courthouse for some far away day in the future when it magically conjures up the monies to finance such a project. In the meantime, the property will just languish, an unproductive eyesore, a missed opportunity.

Again, Lafayette's leaders need to take this upon themselves for the good of the city and the future of its children, too many of whom are beating a path out of Louisiana for the Austins of this world. Downtown needs to be redefined in terms of its economic development importance. The payoff can be immeasurable, the opportunity irreplaceable. We need to make this work.