My discussions and deliberations on the economic future of Baton Rouge have made me certain of three things:
1] We need a lot more young, educated people of various backgrounds to call East Baton Rouge Parish home;
2] Our economic development efforts must be focused on the creation and growth of knowledge-based business sectors, such as medical research and digital and interactive media;
3] The first two will not happen unless and until we have a vibrant and thriving downtown.
Scoff all you want about the magnitude of downtown’s role in our future, but then explain why it is that every wildly successful economic region in our country has scrambled to have a downtown that breathes life 24 hours a day?
That’s because downtown areas essentially act as a region’s calling card to the rest of the world.
The analogy of downtown serving as a community’s living room is a good one. Many of us crave the isolation and privacy that comes from living in single-entrance neighborhoods. And, for some unfounded reason, we find safety in a disjointed street network, contrived from our desire to limit traffic to only those vehicles “that belong there.” As for suburban sidewalks and bike trails that might encourage us to leave our fortified McMansions and Facebook pages for a little face-to-face human interaction … fuhgeddaboutit!
Yet, downtown is different. It’s our living room. It’s where we gather as a community to celebrate, entertain and relax. It’s also the part of our parish that we always leave open for visitors.
State and city-parish governments and the private sector have invested nearly $2 billion since 1987 in an effort to renovate and revitalize the downtown of this parish, but we’ve done little to address one of downtown’s most significant problems.
Quite simply, our living room isn’t connected with the rest of our house. The Mississippi River is a blockade to the west. The Exxon-Mobil refinery does the same on the north. And, sadly and shamefully, race-based decisions of the past—partnered with our 50-year love affair with suburban sprawl—has created a barrier of impoverished decay and abandonment to the south and east.
In short, our downtown is surrounded by a moat of industrial might and mixed-use blight.
Traveling to downtown is a journey many fear. And let’s face it, it’s visually depressing. It’s like living in a house where bad planning and design force you to walk past the laundry room, through the garage, around the trash cans and across the backyard to reach the living room. You can get there, but it’s a pain.
When that’s the case, you either 1] move to a better-designed house that fits your lifestyle or 2] ignore the living room [except when hosting a large crowd] and focus most of your time, energy and passion on the areas of the house more easily utilized.
Unfortunately, a growing number of our young and talented are choosing to find other houses, leaving Baton Rouge for cities they find more desirable for social and professional reasons. And the rest of us? The majority have gone with option 2, turning our collective backs on downtown, choosing, instead, to focus our care and taxpayer demands on areas of the parish closer to our suburban neighborhoods.
The proposed Alive project would play a potentially critical role in linking our city to the mighty river that prompted people to settle here in the first place, and it’s certainly something that many young people seem to passionately desire, but this facility’s construction won’t be the final piece of the downtown puzzle.
Also on the agenda is 1] moderately priced housing, 2] the seemingly impossible task of creating an entertainment district that’s something other than a street of bars [for those familiar with New Orleans, think Julia Street, not Bourbon Street], 3] renovating the downtown library so that it’s a relaxing space of reflection and community interaction and 4] doing something about the parking.
Far more important, however, is overcoming the barriers that disconnect downtown from the rest of the parish. Urban planners, engineers and architects must find a way to cross our Berlin Wall—the Interstate 110 overpass—and connect downtown to Mid City.
Old South Baton Rouge must be brought back to life, especially the corridor along Nicholson Drive connecting downtown to the LSU campus. Yes, there are some projects on the drawing board, but several, to be honest, are less than inspiring.
The Alive project isn’t a referendum on the importance of downtown. We must have a more vibrant downtown. Alive is simply a referendum on Alive.
