TS Alberto didn't keep everyone at home Monday night as a crowd of involved readers came out to be part of the Political Party about "Downtowns on the Verge."
Thanks to our panelists, Christine Burdick of the Tampa Downtown
Partnership, Don Shea of the St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership, Chris
Vela of YARD-OPS, Greg Minder of Intown Group, and Bob Jeffrey of the
city of St. Petersburg.
Weekly Planet editor David Warner will have more about the panel discussion, which was lively and fascinating, but I thought I would throw in a first thought:
As the only Tampa resident on the WP editorial staff, it struck me just how much my city is getting its lunch eaten by St. Petersburg. The city formerly known as "God's Waiting Room" has many preserved historic neighborhoods, civic associations that are empowered and given grants by government, and a lively artistic downtown.
Tampa has a long way to go to catch up now.
Did you go? What did you think?
(cross posted to Blurbex.)
This article appears in Jun 7-13, 2006.