How about reclaiming the city from lawbreaking cyclists ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHmsfiLEY…

Charles, have I told you lately how much I adore you?

Omaha is much the same way. In the 70's, the downtown was a collection of former hotels, department stores, and movie theatres. Lively enough in the day, but absolutely empty at night. So empty that I never really felt threatened being down there by myself in the evening. There weren't even vagrants.

Then they started demolishing everything for parking garages. It made no sense because, other than officer workers, there was no one there. But down they went, The Fontenelle Hotel, Kilpatrick's, The Omaha Theatre, The Masonic Temple, all for parking garages.

Downtown has recovered a bit - a baseball stadium, some new hotels and lots of new residential. Yet these big hulking garages still sit mostly empty, even during the workday. But absolutely no one ever questions their usefulness. Personally, I'd rather the old buildings had survived. They would make the place much more interesting than it is. some of them - The Fontenelle and the Omaha Theatre - were irreplaceable.

I've been to Houston. I have never seen so many cars and so few people. Even if you live in one of the newer high-rise residential towers, there is nothing out your front door-- where you would expect retail at sidewalk level is instead four floors of garage parking. Even if you live next to another tower or a mall or somesuch, 90% of the time there's a parking lot fence that keeps you from walking to the neighboring building. You have to drive to whatever you're looking for. Cops guide traffic out of parking garages at evening rush hour. It's bizarre.

Granted, the weather is so miserable you never want to be outside on the sidewalk or on a bike, but... isn't that just more reason to leave Houston!?

welp, we are not the worst on this front. in fact, there are only really 5 craters left, and not for long:
1. 2nd & Pine.
2. North lot of Qwest Field.
3. the 1/2 block on the east of Occidental Park.
4. the Waterfront
5. the worst offender, the Belltown crater around the former King Cat Theatre. 7th & 8th from Westlake to Denny. I seem to remember that 1 family has sat on it for decades.

"massive parking creators"

Do you mean huge Diamonds?

@2
How would you know about Omaha in the 1970's?

Caution dear, I grew up in Council Bluffs, Iowa, the Renton of Omaha.