CHUCK GREEN
Niceness not enough in Lincoln
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Ati uimga tuiiaiuuvu, l^lll^Ulll 15
a nice town. Not great, just
nice.
“Nice.” What a yite word.
But this town we call home, for at
least part of the year, where we work,
play and study, is in need of a few
improvements. The city’s $1 billion
plus budget wouldn’t have to be tripled
to make them happen.
There’s nothing wrong with Lin
coln in general. After all, it was named
the ninth-best place to live in the
United Stales last summer by Money
magazine, based on crime rales, clean
environment, quality of education,
inflation rates and the job market.
The city has lots of trees, foun
tains, parks and other nice — there’s
that word again — things that make it
a first-rate place in which to grow up
or raise a family.
i nc crime rale is low, and lormcr
Mayor Bill Harris’ anli-drug youth
program has served as a model for
other cities across the country. The
town is relatively clean, the college
atmosphere gives almost every resi
dent an uplift, and the people here arc
hard-working, wholesome and actu
ally care about stuff, even if many of
them drive stupidly.
But through all that sugar-coating
emerges' a nol-so-grcat aspect of
Lincoln. It’s called ignorance of real
ity, and it’s widespread and perva
sive. It’s the fault of everyone, not
just the city decision-makers.
One would be hard-pressed to name
a U.S. city without problems, in which
all residents arc happy with their sur
roundings. Lincoln is no different. -
There arc several ways Lincoln
could be made a much more enjoy
able place for people of all ages.
A few:
• Quit building movie theaters
and start thinking of other things to
do.
Lincoln has more movie theaters
per capita than any other city on earth,
except maybe Omaha. In fact, I re
member reading somewhere that if
you lined up all the theaters in Lin
coln end to end and rolled them into
the ocean, urn ... well, I don’t know,
but Lincoln still has too many thea
ters.
The Lincoln Theater was built last
year and is an awfully nice place. But
for some reason, that’s just not enough.
Now the drawing board is filled with
a 10-scrccn theater, or some such
thing, that is supposed to become the
centerpiece of downtown, the crown
jewel of Star City entertainment.
Who cares? In this day and age of
video cassette recorders, people gen
erally can watch movies at home for
less money whenever they want to.
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All things considered.
Lincoln is. a nice
town. Not great, fust
nice.
People slill are going lo the movies,
but in Lincoln, much of the reason
could be because there’s not much
else to do.
How about a water park on the
outskirts of town, for those 110-dc
grcc summer days? It would cost
money, but it could be bunt to be the
umy uuc waicrparK m iNeorasKa.
Yes, Omaha has a couple wa
terslidcs at Peony Park and the Fun
plex, but those parks arc no Wet ‘N’
Wild- or Oceans of Fun-type places.
A park with two dozen or more
slides/ridcs and a wave pool would
boost Lincoln’s economy, and would
pay for itself relatively quickly.
After all, driving to Kansas City
isn’t always convenient on a boring
Saturday afternoon in June.
• Keep the bars open until 2 or 3
a.m.
This one has been a hot issue for a
long time. The usually over-conser
vative Lincoln City Council, with its
infinite wisdom, has lime and lime
again deemed it necessary for Lin
coln to stop drinkin’ at 1 a.m., so
everyone can be fresh for church on
Sunday morning.
And, naturally, the horrible image
of morally bereft college punks get
ting juiced up for another hour or so
and ihcn hilling Lhc streets in ihcir
rolling caskets has everyone shaking
in his or her slippers.
However, in comparably sized
towns such as Ann Arbor, Mich., and
Madison, Wis., in which barsarcopcn
later than 1 a.m., there were fewer
drunk driving convictions than in
Lincoln last year, according to offi
cial 1990 statistics.
Itcould be coincidence, butmaybe
not. Besides, if people arc going to
drive drunk, they’ll do it no matter
what lime it is.
• Remember the kids.
Having grown up in Lincoln, I cah
attest to the fact that there is little to
do here it you are untortunate enough
be be between the ages of 13 and 21.
Parties get old, and sometimes are
hard to find, and high school kids who
cruise O Street are often hassled by
business owners and police officers.
But what else have they got to do?
This town is in dire need of a
couple teen dance clubs that provide
a place to go other than a parking lot
on O Street. A nightclub like the
Prccinctor the Underground, without
alcohol, in which teen-agers could
dance, listen to music, see a band or
just hang out with friends, might even
reduce vandalism, drug abuse, under
age drinking and other forms of juve
nile delinquency city leaders so enjoy
complaining about.
• Strive to increase cultural aware
ness by narrowing the gaps of misun
derstanding.
Lincoln is tortunatc enough to
possess a good mix of cultures. This I
city has a large Asian population, as
well as dozens of other ethnic groups,
but few groups know much about the
others.
The Lincoln Police Department
recently established a program for its
officers to become more aware of
cultural customs and differences,
particularly the religious practices of
Southeast Asians in Lincoln.
The LPD program stemmed from
a misunderstanding between police
officers and a Southeast Asian family
whose religious healing practice was
misconstrued as child abuse.
A similar program could be initi
ated within the social sector of Lin
coln through more city-sponsored
ethnic functions to increase under
standing between cultures. Street fairs,
exhibits at Pershing Auditorium and
inter-cultural festivals are all possi
bilities.
• Synchronize the traffic lights
downtown.
This pales in comparison to the
aforementioned issues, but it’s im
portant to the menial health of Lin
coln’s residents. This is one of the
few cities I can readily think of whose
traffic lights will turn red when the i
one a block earlier just turned green.
Driving is serious business, and stop
ping at EVERY stop light for eight
blocks in a row is a threat to civil |
harmony.
And that’s where niccness ends.
Green is a senior news-editorial major,
the Daily Nebraskan columnist.
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