Other attractions include Irish bars, adult arcades, and urban ping pong clubs.
They always have cobble stone streets, nice street furniture, and private security guards kicking away skate kids and the homeless. They are often conveniently located next to the new publicly-funded billion dollar baseball field or football stadium, where suburbanites turn the neighborhoods into a giant alcohol and piss puddle on game days.
half this goddamn city is parking lots and I still can't find a place to park how why
why the fuck has this entire thread just been my normal stream of consciousness downtown?
I grew up and live in a highly populated area that wasn't completely fucking overrun and hollowed-out by corporate box chains, or like fake-folksy reclaimed barnwood hang out spots that are run by creepy douches with venture capitalist mindsets (though there is still plenty of that). It somehow maintained a shred of (real) character and a shred of (real) mom n pop businesses/restaurants/manufacturing (like the folks who actually grew up here providing services and goods people need). So I naively thought this is what things were like everywhere.
When I hit the road in my twenties and beyond and saw many, many towns in the U.S., I was fucking slackjawed at how utterly flattened every medium-sized city was by the gnawing, howling, void. Either actual ctrl-V-spam towns across the entire U.S. (you would have no way of knowing - beyond humidity levels - where in the entire country you were if you were instantly teleported there), or exactly what OP is describing, where the 'revitalized' district has a patina of authenticity, just enough to trick the suburban herds into thinking they are participating in some kind of culture that's cooler than the clone-stamped neighborhood they just drove from in their 2022 Chevrolet Dreadnought-Class Star Destroyers.
It's fun when you see miles of beautiful countryside consumed by an unholy Cronenberg of clapboard, brick and glass. Occupied by people who just moved in from 1000 miles away and have 0 connection to the land around them and yes I'm from NC how could you tell
I just saw your username.
The site really should have been chapotrap.horse.
Don't forget the 21+ -oriented indoor mini golf that's only accessible by driving there.
Next to the pirate themed escape room, comrade
My local Aldi had a kid's axe-throwing game with plastic axes and a target you stick up on the wall
When my city shut down a few roads downtown during the lockdowns it was so fucking awesome. One of the restaurants sectioned off a small street, maybe a block long to setup a minigolf and a few cornhole games. It really made me think about how easy it would be to make things much more interesting in a city than just having roads of cars. Plus it just makes walking around so much more relaxing and enjoyable, and you don't have people honking or blocking crosswalks because they're waiting for a parking spot.
There was similar by me. Entire streets closed so that restaurants could use that space as outdoor dining and it was amazing. It made everything seem so much more alive.
You also dont have to worry about some drunk asshole mounting the curb at 35 mph and testing your deductible for health insurance.
Not necessarily a mid-west thing, but driving through old cities and imagining how nice it must have been back in the day will never stop being depressing. Taking a road trip and seeing every single place have the same exact strip malls with at least a handful of the same large chains is bleak. At least around here almost all strip malls have a non-chain Chinese food place and a Mexican food place, but aside from that it's just like subways, burger places, TJ Maxx/Walmart/Target and a fucking Panera
And Cleveland and Pittsburgh and Indianapolis and Buffalo and Cincinnati and St. Louis
I know South Park is pretty reactionary and bad but their shitipatown or whatever it was, was relatively on the mark on this one. We have this in our town in the east side where when I was a kid it was all warehouses and now it’s an arcade, and way overpriced luxury apartments, and bars that serve you drinks in mason glasses and shit like that lol
Caesars in mason jars hit different. I'll accept the lib title for this take.
Omaha's a small town. It's been a small town for a while and I feel like it's time for it to grow up, you know? Get some chain stores in there
Stadiums are a public good/utility, just like gas and electricity, and should be community owned.
heat's fine (and smoke in stuff like BBQ), but personally I don't like that standard Chipotle™ smoky chili flavor at all
I'm from CA, so maybe I'm spoiled in this manner, but I'll take a real burrito over the bland, bog standard Chipotle shit any day
I agree, and wish my workplace wasn't in the same parking lot as a Chipotle, and instead had awesome taco trucks w good veggie options.
You aren't spoiled, you're brainwashed. Texas is home of the clearly superior breakfast taco
Hey, the taste/texture ratio of tortilla to ingredients are better in a taco.
I don't wanna blow this out of proportion but I'm pretty sure adrian zenz is a big burrito guy...pretty sus
Tortilla is half the reason I eat burritos and shit. That said I have better Mexican/tortilla options than Chipotle, and when I go there I go to bulk and get extra rice and beans with lots of hot sauce. Calorie Circus.
They also finally get funding for better public transportation infrastructure, now that most of the people who use it have been pushed out
