The relationship between the City of Anaheim and its residents has been fairly contentious over the past few decades. Residents see the City as unresponsive, which City staff seem to have the attitude that residents are an obstacle to overcome instead of participants in the decision making process. This status quo will not produce a vibrant and invigorated community. Residents need to be more involved and the City needs to enable residents to become more involved at a time and place their input can make a difference.
Through the late 1970s and into the ’80s, the City of Anaheim, lead by the Anaheim Redevelopment Agency, sought to revitalize the city’s flagging downtown by demolishing what was there and rebuilding. At the time, some Anaheim residents tried to save downtown, but the Agency pushed ahead with its plans despite the objections.
Everybody, residents and City Hall alike, knew that something needed to be done with Anaheim’s downtown. The storefronts had been taken over by adult bookstores, the movie theater showed x-rated films. Many residents wanted a reinvigorated downtown, bringing it back to its heyday from decades earlier. The Redevelopment Agency’s plan was to scrape the existing buildings off the land to make way for something new. The Agency moved ahead with its plans, which unfortunately has turned out poorly.
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