A recent blog I posted posed the simple question of “why” regarding the opposition by some to efforts to revive downtown Amarillo.

It drew a thoughtful response from a reader who said this, in part: “Why” the myopic focus on “downtown” when only a very small minority of the populace even has this on their radar?

The term “myopic” caught my attention. The dictionary defines “myopia” as a defect in vision, blurriness at things seen at some distance.

The downtown Amarillo effort, in my view, remains sound in principle and its concept is more than doable.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2015/05/22/event-venue-facing-increased-scrutiny/

I’ll tell you about another city that launched a downtown renewal about four decades ago.

That would be my hometown of Portland, Ore.

The city elected a young man as mayor in 1972. Neil Goldschmidt had served on the city council and then was elected to lead the city’s strong-mayor form of government; he was just 32 years of age, one of the younger big-city mayors in America.

One of his campaign themes was to revive downtown, which at the time of his election wasn’t anything to boast about. It had its share of retail outlets, but that’s about it.

Then the mayor did something quite extraordinary. Looking into the future with his own “myopic” vision, he unilaterally vetoed a highway project that would cut a swath through the southeast quadrant of the city and carve its way to the Cascade Range east of town. The Mount Hood Freeway, as it was called, was going to improve traffic flow through southeast Portland and boost retail and other commercial development all along its route.

Goldschmidt would have none of it. He said, in effect, “We’re going to focus our efforts on rebuilding downtown and developing a mass transit system that is second to none in the country.” He said the city would not sanction the construction of what I believe he called a “50-mile-long strip mall all the way to Mount Hood.”

There wasn’t a huge groundswell of support for Goldschmidt’s idea in the 1970s, but he told us — come hell or high water — we were going to get a downtown district that will make us proud.

The city invested lots of public money to build a park along the waterfront; it enticed developers to erect multi-family housing units on the outskirts of the downtown district; it lured a whole array of eating and drinking establishments; it created a “fareless square” for buses to carry passengers through the downtown core free of charge; it renovated run-down hotels into four- and five-star establishments; it made improvements to a rotting downtown ballpark that used to be home to a AAA baseball club but which now is home to a major league soccer franchise.

So … the vision of one mayor a lifetime or two ago may have seemed “myopic” to some. To others — including the mayor himself — the vision was as far-sighted as it could get.

I do not know if Amarillo’s vision for its downtown will produce all that has come to pass in Portland. The city wants to build a ballpark downtown; it wants to erect a parking garage and a convention hotel. It likely will seek to improve its Civic Center in due course. The city’s intent is to turn downtown into a business and entertainment center.

The vision I’ve seen of what the city intends for its downtown is nothing short of spectacular.

I could make the case that Amarillo’s civic, political and community brain trusts need to do a better job of selling its concept to those who remain skeptical.

I’m telling you, though, the project as I see it can work and I continue to have faith that it will.