downtown "redevelopment" in Tucson

As Gertrude Stein once said about her home town - "The trouble with Oakland is that when you get there, there isn't any there there" - so could we all say the same about Downtown Tucson. Unfortunately for us, the people in a position to do something about this, our supposedly progressive Democratic City Council, seem to be buying the same old tired ideas about new convention centers. These harebrained schemes must have originated deep in the bowels of the real estate developer and Chamber of Commerce communities. Instead of allowing this nonsense to exit out the appropriate end and be flushed into the sewer of stupid ideas, our esteemed leadership keeps regurgitating them so that the community can experience the stench and taste the bile over and over again.

In a city built on the banks of a river-that-goes-nowhere, Rio Nuevo was a particularly appropriate name for the various crackpot schemes put forth for the redevelopment of Downtown Tucson. They too lead into a wilderness of sand and evaporation, just like the intermittently mighty Santa Cruz.