The Myth Of Lubbock’s Downtown

Downtown is not a thing in Lubbock and the approach to make it a thing, is really weird and tone-deaf.

For some reason, the head of Lubbock's Economic Alliance has an article about Lubbock's future, on an Austin website, in which he addresses Lubbock people.  Apparently, it was originally on our local paper website but didn't get much traction there (which may be indicative of the problems this issue faces).

Now let's deal with the reason we're here, this claim-

"respondents to a survey said in 10 – 15 years they imagine Lubbock as a destination city with a vibrant downtown and diverse job opportunities"

Who responded to that survey? I don't know of anyone who makes a point of going downtown. I was detoured through there recently and most of it is jaw-jarring bricks and stores that look like they went out of business five minutes ago. When I think of "downtown" the word "vibrant" never comes to mine. When I think of the word "downtown", I think of the bus station, the jail, and a bunch of places that are best to not be in after dark. The only way I'd hang out downtown is if I was homeless, so I could see my homeless friends

Evidently what we have here is a bunch of rich folks who bought up property in the area so they're trying to make it a "thing". Well, good on ya. I FIRMLY believe we need to start reeling in Lubbock's grown and spend more time on what's inside the Loop. I'm just saying that no average Lubbockite is buying into the vision yet. The author is correct about one thing; he said that  "perception" of the area is the greatest threat to this vision and proponents are going to have to work a lot harder to get local residents to care or frequent this area.