On a recent, bright Wednesday afternoon, Gary Moore and Ralph Jackson, a pair of African-American men, sit on a sun-drenched bench on Riverwalk just east of Andrews Avenue. They are deep in conversation. Moore, a Miami artist, and Jackson, director of the Center for Community and Cultural Heritage at Florida Atlantic University's downtown campus, are talking about what makes a city vibrant when I approach.
Colby Katz
Las Olas River House sales associate Bobbi Ocean says it's the Las Olas lifestyle that's encouraging buyers to shell out $700,000 for a condo on the New River
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Jackson, who often strolls over to Riverwalk from his office at FAU, just a stone's throw from Las Olas River House, finds downtown wanting. "It needs people here," he says. "We need to have more people downtown in order for it to work."
So when the new downtown dwellers start moving into the Symphony, Las Olas Grand, Las Olas River House, Summit Las Olas, the Venezia, the Waverly -- the city will come to life?
Well...
It's not just people. It's the kind of people, he explains. Most of the people moving into condos close to the New River, he says, will be monied and white.
He's probably right about that.
Moore and Jackson believe that segregation is a bad thing; they believe it on a deep level. It was bad for blacks, even though there were some advantages to black business owners and for the continuity of the community. And it's bad for rich people too, even if they seem to choose it.
"It's gentrification," Moore says.
"It will create a downtown that has no spirit, no heart," Jackson adds. "For that, you need to have a variety of people, a variety of incomes, a variety of cultures."
Instead, it will be a fancy monotone, but it won't be welcoming if you aren't landed and white. "We're eliminating cultures, fast," Jackson says, referring to the skyrocketing housing prices around downtown.
In Philadelphia, where Moore is from, he says there's a bustling city center where "black people, white people, Irish, Italian" all mix. "There is enough for everybody to do there," he adds.
One way to bring together everyone is activities such as free movies and jazz concerts in Huizenga Park. But the kind of small-scale, hip stores that make a place interesting probably won't happen downtown. High rents and big-bucks stores catering to upscale customers will make that impossible.
In Philly, Moore says, paved and landscaped boulevards connect black neighborhoods and fancy white ones like Society Hill to the urban core. "Not like here in Fort Lauderdale," Moore continues. "If you live on Sistrunk, there is no comfortable way to get here from there. You go through warehouses; you go through nothing."
Jackson doesn't want city commissioners to limit growth. He wants them to encourage development of middle-income and low-income housing in neighborhoods near downtown.
Of course, that's not where developers are clamoring to build. And if cities' leadership reflects the character of their citizenry, Fort Lauderdale may not be that inclusive.
What else do they think the city needs to be more habitable?
"Shade," laughs Jackson.
