Most important thread: What is YOUR opionions of the city that I treasure (Omaha metro)?? (Columbus: showing)

[ehenningsen]

and please explain in detail...

[MattDen]

Omaha isnt my cup of tea. Its not a place for a 20 something like myself either. It has no energy in my opinion, its bland and they dont have any interesting urban neighborhoods like other cities do.

Omaha is not a neighborhoody city thats what I dont like. They have no neighborhoods that one can go to and spend the entire day in. A majority of the neighborhoods are not well-kept either. The neighborhoods in Omaha are characterless for the most part. The locals like to talk about Benson and all they have is a few shops in a sea of lousy old wooden homes. Its nothing like Columbus, Ohio's Short North where they have dozens of galleries, probubly a dozen or more coffee shops usually filled with people, tons of bars and retaurants and amazing brick architecture on the adjacent streets. Omaha just doesnt have any interesting neighborhoods like that, they are mainly characterless, demoralizing tracts of wood houses with maybe a gas station or an auto repair shop.

I know that when Benson was recommended to me as a happening place and I went there. I was insulted that they call that a true urban neighborhood. Thats like a Denveite recommending going to Globeville, a Pittsburgher recommending Troy Hill or someone from Columbus recommended Hilltop. They would never consider those type of neighborhoods happening in Columbus, Denver or Pittsburgh but why Omaha? Becuase Omaha has no true interesting neighborhoods to spend a day in.



Omaha is also a very insular city the only a vast majority of peopole leave their homes is to go to work or go to the mall.
I guess at least the people are polite which is more then I can say for the rest of the state.

I also think Omaha's architecture with the excpetion of a few isolated areas like Field Club and the area around memorial park is horrible. Basically miles and miles of wooden-framed boxy old homes.

Downtown is extremely boring also. The Old Market just doesnt have anything close to an urban vibe at all. Ive gone to the Old Market is nothing down there interests me. The selection of choices of where to go in the Old Market is lousy. I seriously dont see why people talk about the Old Market so much there, its got as much character as a suburban strip-mall.

The bars and clubs in Omaha are quite boring overall. The coffee shops around here arent like other cities where people buy a cup of coffee and stay, they usually order and leave. As far as entertainment, Omaha just doesnt interest me.

[ehenningsen]

I understand your opionion, and pretty much I was expecting that from you Mattden, lol...

Anybody else??

[MattDen]

The dismissive nature about the state of their city is typical of the people who live in Omaha and even the politicians who run it.

Seriously, Omaha is far behind the times. A few entertainment destination dont make up for the fact Omaha is a city of boring, unappealing neighborhoods. Going Downtown is a chore in Omaha, in alot of cities one looks forward to going to downtown or to the unique urban neighborhoods alot of cities besides Omaha have.

I mean just going thru the neighborhoods in Omaha is a demoralizing, boring experience. I guess Omaha leaders decades ago knew their towns old neighborhoods by and large arent appealing in the slightest and decided create a nice highway network so people can get from work to home in as little time as possible.

[ehenningsen]

Wow, Omaha must be one run-down aweful place, huh, mattden?
Man, what a horrible place!! Why don't the people there just leave?
I guess what most people want to know here mattden is, well, have you ever run into a cow in Omaha?

[star_gazer]

Just ignore him, he's a troll.


I thought I posted this once before... but here's a sampling from some of Omaha's MANY, nice older neighborhoods... just what I have photos of... there are numerous other neighborhoods which I don't have photos of, specifically adjacent to Benson is the beautiful Country Club neighborhood, full of old brick tudor homes... if Matt really knew anything about Omaha, he'd be aware of this.

Bemis Park




Cathedral


Mercer Park



Medical Center



Gold Coast



Happy Hollow (that 'horrible' area around Memorial Park)






Hanscom Park




Dahlman (Omaha's oldest neighborhood)





Again, just a sampling... but there are indeed many nice neighborhoods in the older parts of Omaha... and they aren't cheap either, many Omahans are discovering how much more convenient it is to live closer into the city and are driving up the prices of these homes.

[Macaroon]

Oh my gosh!!! Who is this MattDen and why does he hate Omaha so much? Has he ever even lived in Omaha? He sure isn’t describing the Omaha I know and love.

I first lived in Omaha in the late 70’s when I attended Creighton Law School. We lived in the Dundee area at that time and loved our neighborhood and the friendly neighbors.

I have worked for our family business with factories and 85 stores throughout the Midwest, from the Rockies through Illinois. For 20+ years I traveled the Midwest and the U.S. for work and recreation. My wife who was raised in Omaha has lived in the San Francisco area as well as Houston and Central Iowa.

6 years ago I left the family business and we were presented with an interesting choice: Where did we want to live for the rest of our life? We literally could have gone anywhere in the world. We have chosen Omaha.

Up until 6 years ago I had always lived in smaller towns or the suburbs. My wife’s experience had been more urban. For the last 6 years we’ve been testing the market (pun intended) living in a loft apartment in the Old Market. We both love it. In a couple months we’ll be moving in to our new condo on the riverfront.

The reason I give you my background is this: We have experienced living, working and traveling around the Midwest, United States and the World.
I’m intimately familiar with the economic conditions of many communities throughout the states of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, South and North Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin and Illinois. We’ve traveled extensively around the world enjoying entertainment options available in places like Australia, Tahiti, Hawaii, L.A., New York, Europe and Africa. (Asia this coming fall) My conclusion is this: There is no better place on earth to do business, work, play or live than Omaha, Nebraska. Does Omaha have everything? Is Omaha perfect? NOPE. Show me the place that does or is!!!

[MattDen]

They have a few nice apartment buildings and a few homes around 38th. But other then that the "gold coast" is rather bland architecturally.

Even that sampler had maybe 5 homes, apartment complexes that are in the least bit architecurally significant to me.

Dundee or whatever its called is boring. Seriously, they have a small movie theatre and a few very small restaurants around. I have walked around there and its just some decent sized wooden homes, with a rare brick home if you happen to be on the right street.

Those picture are hardly representive of whats average for Omaha. In fact those houses are very, very rare. The few jewels in the most desired neighborhoods are hardly representive.

In an earlier post I recommend UNO though because the area around UNO where Memorial Park is fairly nice though.

What about some pictures of North 16th, North 24th or North 30th. Maybe some South 13th and 17th in there also. Those streets are much more representive of Omaha then those pictures of the few jewels in a select few neighborhoods.

I see very little brick construction there, mostly wooden homes. Even a few of those pictures are of boxy wooden framed homes which have very little architectural appeal.

Thats basically the equivilent of me going to Humboldt street in Denver and saying that its representive of the entire city and its not.

[kosnebbear]

MattDen is not from Nebraska he is from Denver. He hates everything about Nebraska from the rude people out west to the ugly backward people who live in Omaha. He is leaving Nebraska soon.

[Katiana]

Don't shoot me, I'm only the messenger, but . . . those homes look like a lot of the older homes in Denver. Must have been built about the same time.

Anyway, very attractive if you're into old houses. I've never seen that part of Omaha; my DH's family seems to prefer the new stuff and would drive me around showing it to me.