Expansion will ensure success
Beth Clothier
Issue date: 9/2/09 Section: Opinion
Some of the biggest news going around right now is the proposed expansion and redevelopment project for Adams Street which is currently in talks with the City Council, and as someone who now calls this place home 365 days a year, I for one couldn't be more thrilled.
I don't know how many of you out there have had people come to visit and felt overwhelmed by trying to find something for them to do, especially during the summer. My younger brother and his wife came to visit me for a weekend in June, and sadly the highlight of their visit was our trip to the dollar store and a round of mini golf at Ball Fore, which while fun is hardly anything to write home about. It's not even the most exciting mini golf course, as if everything here must subscribe to blandness. Could I blame them for going home after one night as soon as it was polite to leave?
Macomb is a city of two minds. It is a college town, and yet it tries so desperately to pull away from that fact. It seems complacent to try to remain a small town, to strain against change like an unbroken horse. It also seems somewhat resentful of the presence of the student population which feeds the university that offers so many in the town employment and sustenance, and which changes it so drastically as to demand even further alteration.Creating a student section in the town similar to those at other universities could only benefit the town of Macomb as a whole. It would give students a variety of places to go and perhaps provide them more forms of entertainment than bar-hopping or seeing who can get alcohol poisoning the fastest. Redeveloping Adams Street would also get rid of the trashy "Animal House" element that is so often associated with the area. The street leading into the university should have more of a downtown feel than its present look of "morning after an epic all-night kegger." If the university itself has to change slowly due to lack of funding, then at least give students something outside the school itself to think about when it comes time for them to consider which college they want to attend.
A change could not only bring a larger student population and income flow to the city, but a greater range of available employment and business opportunities. It's time that Macomb realizes its true potential and makes the city and the university all that it has the possibility to be.
I don't know how many of you out there have had people come to visit and felt overwhelmed by trying to find something for them to do, especially during the summer. My younger brother and his wife came to visit me for a weekend in June, and sadly the highlight of their visit was our trip to the dollar store and a round of mini golf at Ball Fore, which while fun is hardly anything to write home about. It's not even the most exciting mini golf course, as if everything here must subscribe to blandness. Could I blame them for going home after one night as soon as it was polite to leave?
Macomb is a city of two minds. It is a college town, and yet it tries so desperately to pull away from that fact. It seems complacent to try to remain a small town, to strain against change like an unbroken horse. It also seems somewhat resentful of the presence of the student population which feeds the university that offers so many in the town employment and sustenance, and which changes it so drastically as to demand even further alteration.Creating a student section in the town similar to those at other universities could only benefit the town of Macomb as a whole. It would give students a variety of places to go and perhaps provide them more forms of entertainment than bar-hopping or seeing who can get alcohol poisoning the fastest. Redeveloping Adams Street would also get rid of the trashy "Animal House" element that is so often associated with the area. The street leading into the university should have more of a downtown feel than its present look of "morning after an epic all-night kegger." If the university itself has to change slowly due to lack of funding, then at least give students something outside the school itself to think about when it comes time for them to consider which college they want to attend.
A change could not only bring a larger student population and income flow to the city, but a greater range of available employment and business opportunities. It's time that Macomb realizes its true potential and makes the city and the university all that it has the possibility to be.
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