blogdowntown 2.0: More Conversation

This is good news. I am so glad Ed Fuentes has become a part of the blogdowntown crew. While you guys have fun highlighting the fun and sexy parts of Downtown , the heart of skid row will remain my territory. I know you guys will do a great job of getting blogdowntown to the point of becoming a downtown booster blog. But I will promote Downtowns good and continue to tell it's other side.

My readership continues to grow , sometimes without referrals from other bloggers. So I am happy. I would like to become a warm and fuzzy downtown blog and say everything is hunky dory in downtown , but I know that obfuscation has been one of the main reasons downtown has fomented in it's own filth for many years , thus it behooves me to continue to let the people know that Central City East is in fact still here and we are doing our best as residents to help change the situation without damaging the people.

It is looking like you have a good collaboration: Ed Fuentes will bring much needed human interest stories to blogdowntown and Dave Bullock will bring lot's of trivia and give us the information we all need on how to be prepared in case of a disaster , this was a good move on your part in adding Dave Bullock because we need his disaster preparedness information even more than we need to know about who is moving into what loft.

AS for me, I will remain the blog that is in the thorn of the side of the big development boom that is going on downtown. The blog that reminds us all that skid row still exists and we are all fighting to make it better from within. The tactics I am using aren't what most would like. The irony is that Steve Lopez was lauded for his higlighting the negative of downtwon , but someone who actually lives here won't because I live it everyday and the everyday is hard to even comprehend and believe it exists.

What I do look forward to at the new blogdowntown are the stories the Main Stream Media won't cover , for instance; was the LA Times at Sergeant Warner's party ? NO . View from a loft was there, although These intimate downtown stories is what will strengthen what downtown becomes and how it is transformed.

As I walked to cliftons today for the history lesson that was going on there, I was watching all of the people downtown shopping and as a resident I was going to an event and not shopping , this is the difference between the residents and those who just come here to shop and work . We go to things that bring us together as a community , where community didn't really exist outside of skid row when I first arrived. What changes have already happened and what will happen downtown are yet still to come.... So if those out there feel I feel dissed , wrong. I don't need external validation . I will continue to highlight skid row and Central City East in all of it's glorious detail. It is not sexy and the downtown boosters may not like it. But if we stop speaking of the subject we will just go back in time.

We are all one downtown. Elitists may not like to hear that. But it is true. We are here and we aren't going anywhere for years to come. But for those who think it was the big market rate developments that have ushered in the downtown of the elite , I want you to remember the legacy that James Wood , the CRA Chairman of many years ago brought to downtown and that was SRO Housing Corporation , whose tenants and employees have struggled over many years to clean up skid row and continue to do so, while the johhnny come latelys in the market rate lofts continue to take credit for the hard work of those who have struggled to get the homeless inside ,and even as recently as last year, fought vehemently against the ACLU compromise to make skid row and downtown the place to live outdoors without other options. We will continue to clean up the mess that the city created and clean up the even bigger mess it is trying to create by slowly decreasing it's borders...... I know that as time moves on and the advertisers begin to inundate blogdowntown,the move will be made to remove me from the blogroll , well, I know that may happen ,and ,of course, am willing to accept the consequences of not stopping to blog about the inequities that are sometimes brought upon those in skid row. It is inevitable. Money talks.

Anyway , good luck to all of you and I hope you make blogdowntown the place to be. Like I said , it won't hurt my feelings if I am removed from the blogroll. I know how economics works.

Congrats guys. Honestly, because of what I've read by each of the three of you, my perspective of Downtown has changed dramatically, making me believe that Downtown could truly be the heart of L.A... an organ thats been hard to place in after forteen years in this fair city.

and then there were three...

Nice way to merge great minds. This City needs more strategically aligned bloggers working together.

Now, if only someone would start blogging about Morningside Circle or Broadway Square or Happy Valley or...

congrats guys! see you all later.

Great move, fellas. I'll be watching with great interest as blogdowntown's group voice deepens and matures. Downtown will be a better-informed and -organized community for it.