[EUPL]

This is why Hartford needs to wake up and do something with itself, it became such a ghost town in the recent years.


The case for big cities, in 1 map

[NewJeffCT]

I think a lot can be done to make Hartford more attractive, but it will take many years for the city to overcome its image with in state residents. (Crime was down in Hartford last year, but most people in CT would be surprised to hear it, or think it's only down because 2012 was such a horrible year crime-wise in Hartford...)

I've stated a few times on here before, but I grew up in Cromwell and most of my relatives were in Middletown, and we were all told horror stories about how polluted the Conn. River was, and how nobody would even think of using it for boating, swimming, water activities, etc. "There are rats bigger than cats there," on that little island near the Arrigoni Bridge, my grandfather used to say. So, when Harbor Park opened up back in the 90s, I thought it was doomed to fail - nobody would want to go there - if you fell off your boat, you'd likely melt from the acid in the water, or get poisoned from all the toxins, etc. Yet, Harbor Park was a hit, and it's still popular today, and now there are all sorts of water activities on the river, which has been cleaned up. (It still took me years to get used to the idea of the CT River in Middletown being usable!)

[EUPL]

Well Middletown is actually doing something unlike the Ghetto mayor of Hartford who just collects his salary.

Consultant To Present Middletown Riverfront Development Plan | WTIC FOX CT

[JayCT]

Actually Hartford has already done a lot to reconnect the city to the riverfront. Riverfront Recapture is an organization dedicated to this and helped get several connections to the river built as well as a network of trails and parks along the river. They also sponsor events along the river including the fireworks on July 4th.

That said I agree the city needs to do more. The current Mayor is better than the previous one (Perez) but sadly he has not done much to stablize the city's focus or engage major businesses. This will be key to continuing to rebuild the city.

A good example of how bad he is would be UConn's relocation into downtown. When it was announced that UConn would be moving to Front Street, the Mayor balked and tried to change their minds by publicly promoting they move to a site north of I-84. To me that looked terrible. His recent firing of key staff members also looks bad. Who wants to deal with a revolving door of key staffers. JMHO, Jay