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So if you know me, you know I'm originally from Parkersburg. Travelling around the state, I became jealous of different cities in WV, including Charleston, Huntington, Morgantown, Wheeling, etc - not because of their size, but because they felt like actual, semi-dense cities. Parkersburg isn't, and that's due to the sea of parking lots. I got bored today and decided to generate a map of the surface parking lots in Parkersburg, which cause the disconnected/low-density/dead feel to the downtown.
-Edit- Apparently you can only have 70 different objects per page, so they split the map up in two different sections. There are so many parking lots in Parkersburg, they literally have to be split into two different maps!
Oh boy, this is bad.
The red represents surface lots (with the darkest red where the old city building used to be - it has been a parking lot my whole life. Picture), the light red/pink are car dealers, and green are the parking garages. At least 65% of the city block land is parking. Goodness.
If I have time later, I might do a similar map for some of the larger cities in the state and actually do the math on percentage of land used for parking. But today, I just wanted to publicly vent my frustrations here.
Great project. I noticed that Parkersburg was all parking lots. That's why it's WV's worst major city.
I don't think Parkersburg is bad because it has alot of parking lots. There is alot of good neighborhoods in that town, plus there is a couple newer buildings in and around downtown. Different cities in WV offer different atmospheres, so its hard to say there is a best or worst.
In terms of downtown, Chris, I'd be inclined to agree with Evergrey. The city as a whole? Definitely not. There are lots of great communities and people around Parkersburg and at least a few things to do. The city has some of the best park areas in the state, great schools, plenty of retail (still no Target, though), and an underrated arts community. I grew up there, and even though I loved the city and surrounding areas, part of me is still an urbanite and a lot of the pride of a city is found in the quality of its downtown district.
The problem comes when you try to judge the downtown based on traditional downtown characteristics (density, populaiton, etc.). Yes, Parkersburg has a few good stores, the Smoot Theater, the Blennerhassett Hotel, Actors' Guild, and the Art Museum, but apart from Market St (and the Smoot off it on 5th), the rest of downtown is too spread out to have any continuity. Many communities can get away with this and have everything concentrated on a main street, but they are usually smaller cities. For a town that is supposed to be the 3rd (or 4th, now) largest city in the state, that shouldn't be the case.
I agree with most of what has been said here having lived just outside of Parkersburg since the late 80's. The downtown, while definitely not mid-town Manhatten, is still nice. It's clean, very safe, and there have been several new restaurants & businesses that have opened on Market Street in the last couple of years, along with the new Point Park and sidewalk/lighting renovations on Market and 5th street. There are even Friday night concerts at Point Park now that have been drawing very large crowds. A new downtown hotel on 5th street across from Tim Horton's is also being discussed. It seems to be making progress, but still a ways to go.
Quite a few work downtown due to Public Debt and High Mark, which has contributed to the many parking lots. It resembles more a campus on the lower, government sector of town. The demolition of several historical structures, like the old City Building or more recently the Elks building, to put in a simple parking lot is nothing short of a crime in my opinion. Unbelievably, the Smoot Theatre was even going to be demolished back in the late 80's until a group stepped in and bought it. Now it's one of the best theatre's in the state.
You can't really compare Parkersburg's downtown to those of Charleston, Huntington, or Wheeling. All three of those towns either are or once were much larger cities than Parkersburg ever was, which is why they have larger and more urban downtown areas. Charleston's downtown is especially nice, and I didn't realize how large a downtown that Wheeling has. It's very old looking now, but you can tell used to be really something in its heyday.
Thanks! Yes, it's a great view from up there. I think of it as our mini version of Pittsburgh's Mt. Washington.
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