Hiking Trails Vital To Economic Growth: Gazette

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This past Sunday’s Gazette editorial was a curiously odd endorsement of the Janesville Downtown revitalization plan. Not so much that they asked the City Council to approve it, but the Gazette’s logic and reasoning given for their support.

JG Editorial:
Naysayers will question why the city should buy more land when it can’t properly care for what it has now. Those concerns have some merit. But maintenance is a short-term issue of shifting work crews to properties getting use

Why call those who practice fiscal common sense “naysayers.” This entire statement perfectly defines the reasoning of an irresponsible and neglectful property owner. I don’t know about you but “maintenance” and everything it implies is a long-term plan. And if maintenance means maintaining only areas being used, while the others are left to deteriorate, some would say you're in over your head or at worst a “slumlord.” It only figures that the City of Janesville seems to have adopted this same reasoning regarding their greenspaces and parks.

JG Editorial Excerpt:
Like the new plan, the city’s 1998 Riverfront strategy included goals of increasing public access to the river and making the water a catalyst for economic revitalization. Imagine a hiking, biking and walking trail that runs along both sides of the River from the Jackson street bridge near Dawson Fields north to Memorial Drive…….

Imagine what that could do to downtown redevelopment dreams.

It isn’t often when the Gazette editors use a word like “imagine.” When I think of economic development in high density downtown areas I imagine a 20 story condo/office mid-level skyscraper or a marina/amusement park lined with boutique shops. Bike paths, hiking trails and jogging paths are nice recreational perks, but for some reason they not among the first things I think of to attract new economic development.

To spark economic redevelopment, I also imagined turning a site like the vacant 75,000 square foot Accudyne/Alliant building at 340 N. Franklin into a modern $22 million 54,000 square foot printing press facilities with change to spare. But that was not to be.Monday's Gazette was the first issue printed in their new facilities on the east side fringes of Janesville. An area far away from downtown, the river, hiking trails and everything else that they believe is necessary for economic growth. Imagine that!