Tag Archives: quality of life

Why Can’t Indy Do Stuff Like This??

Trust Neil Pierce to give us a peek at what cities can be. And of course, New York is leading the way–under a Mayor who has done an incredible job of making the Big Apple both livable and hip. Pierce describes the new touch-screen kiosks that are being unveiled first in New York’s Union Square–new technology that will not only make city life more convenient, informative and safer, but will generate revenue to boot.

Whatever your impressions of Mayor Bloomberg as a person or politician, his impact on the daily life of the city is undeniable.  Since our middle son moved to Manhattan, my husband and I get into New York a couple of times a year, and we’ve seen the changes: bike paths everywhere; inviting riverside parks; pedestrian-friendly walks and mid-street cafes where horn-honking cars used to dominate. The city is rolling out a bike-sharing program with an initial supply of ten thousand bicycles. It is well into the redevelopment of west-side Manhattan–our son lives in a spiffy new tower, complete with doorman and upscale amenities in a neighborhood I wouldn’t have walked in ten years ago, not far from the triumph that is the High Line.

In fact, the High Line is a perfect symbol for the City under Bloomberg. It was an eyesore–an abandoned elevated train track. Most cities would have torn it down; New York turned it into a park so successful that it attracts tourists from around the world and has generated some two billion dollars in adjacent redevelopment.

A city that can turn an eyesore into an amenity is worth emulating, even if you can’t get a 32-ounce soda there.

Next month, we’ll be visiting our son, and I’m making a beeline for Union Square. I’m going to be one of the first to try out the new kiosks. I’ll need to do it there, because if the past few years are any indication, it will be a long time before Indianapolis gets them. We were late getting even the few bike lanes we have, and no one has even suggested that we introduce a bike-sharing program, although cities from New York to Charlotte have done so. Our parks depend on charity for their continued existence. Public transportation is next to nonexistent. On a per-capita basis, New York is safer.

When we do something big, like hosting the Super Bowl, the impetus and the execution come from the private sector. If anyone in the Mayor’s office or on the City-Country Council is thinking big, or proposing innovative ways to improve livability in our city, they’re keeping it a secret.

Of course, we can buy really big sodas.

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Quality of Life

Take a break from the battle over chicken sandwiches (and no, people refusing to eat at a fast-food outlet are not attacking the company’s right to free speech–they are exercising their own. Only government can violate the First Amendment!) Read the morning Star if you must (it won’t take long–without reporters, there isn’t much news), but avoid the embarrassing letters to the editor. (Yesterday, two letter-writers insisted that separation of church and state isn’t in the Constitution because, you see, the actual words aren’t there…). Turn off the TV ads for candidates promising to deliver public services with fewer tax dollars.

Instead, read this. 

Wouldn’t it be nice if we all stopped squabbling, and judging each other and generally acting like spoiled children? What if we actually came together to grow the kind of city that Len Farber is describing?

Maybe if we improved our municipal quality of life, we wouldn’t be so cranky.

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Use the Damn Money to Do Your Job

Not-my-man Mitch has announced that the state has a 2+ billion dollar surplus, and that he plans to return 100. to each taxpayer.

Let me see if I have this right: Indiana has shitty transportation, neglected parks, and substandard schools. We have a Department of Childrens Services that is so understaffed that children are literally dying. Services have suffered while public servants have been furloughed and fired. But rather than apply the surplus to any of these purposes, Daniels proposes to send each of us taxpayers a refund sufficient to buy a nice dinner.

Whoopee.

John Gregg and Vi Simpson reacted strongly–and appropriately– to the Governor’s announcement, pointing out that a significant part of the “surplus” Daniels is bragging about includes money that should have been spent by DCS on programs to protect children.

Between 2007 and 2011, DCS returned more than 234 million dollars to the state’s general fund. During that same time period, the Indianapolis Star found at least 25 Hoosier children had died even though DCS had been notified of abuse or other severe problems in their families. Gregg told of one 12-year-old boy who was beaten to death on the very same day that DCS closed its investigations into allegations that the boy was the victim of neglect and abuse. He also noted that the Department has stopped its previous practice of providing mental health services to families with children who pose a threat to themselves or others.

For years, child advocacy organizations have echoed the Star’s conclusion that the agency has too few caseworkers and is underfunded, but miraculously, it had $234 million dollars “left over” to return to the state’s general fund.

Guess what, Governor Daniels? I don’t want a refund. I want to live in a state with a reasonable quality of life. I want to live in a state with a decent educational system. And I definitely want to live in a state that takes its obligation to protect defenseless children seriously.

I can buy my own damn dinner.

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Appreciating Our Assets

My husband and I just returned from the Phoenix Theatre’s production of “Avenue Q.”

We had seen the show on Broadway a few years ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it, so we had a pretty good basis for comparison–and this show was every bit as good as the production we saw that night in New York. The singing, acting, stagecraft–all were absolutely first-rate. It was just a great show.

Sometimes we forget how much talent we have right here in Indianapolis–and how important it is to support our local cultural assets. The Phoenix was the first local professional theater to produce cutting-edge new plays and emerging playwrights, and it has consistently been intellectually provocative and technically excellent. The IRT, another important community asset, provides more mainstream fare, and over the years both theaters have been joined by several others–not to mention various other performance venues.

City leaders talk a lot about the importance of science and technology to economic development and the local economy, and it is undeniable that efforts like Bio-Crossroads and Internet II are vitally important to growing our city. But a flourishing arts community is equally important. A vibrant arts community–galleries, theaters, festivals, poetry readings, Fringe festivals–contributes to a good quality of life, and that in turn appeals to what Richard Florida calls the Creative Class, which in its turn contributes to job creation and economic development.

On a more mundane level, world-class entertainment helps fill local bars and restaurants and generates foot traffic for retail venues. (Studies suggest that those who patronize the arts add much more to the local economy than do those who attend sporting events–although public support for the latter is many times the support we give the arts.)

The Phoenix was sold out for the Sunday matinee, and evidently tickets are going fast. If you are lucky, you might still be able to see this fabulous performance of “Avenue Q.”  And if Indianapolis is lucky, we will continue to attract people like the Phoenix’ founding director Brian Fonseca–people who enrich our community and add immeasurably to the quality of our urban life.

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