Whose City Is This Anyway?

The poet Marvin Bell has a favorite story he tells about a man dressed as a clown who robbed a downtown Iowa City Bank and then “fled on foot and melted into the crowd.” This, for Bell, was emblematic of the relaxed bohemian atmosphere of Iowa City. But that hippie dippie weird Iowa City has been in retreat for 40 years, and I wonder what sort of city will be taking its place.

The Iowa City City Council has passed some new ordinances (the 21-only ordinance and the anti-panhandling ordinance) that seem to be a direct attempt to control and channel the culture of downtown Iowa City. I can see how these two ordinances are meant to improve the safety and quality of life, but I have several problems with them.

Without rehashing the wider debate over the 21-ordinance, there is a specific problem I have with it: It bars those under 21 from the majority of the musical events presented downtown. I find this unacceptable for two reasons. First, because it prevents a willing audience from seeing music they want to see, making it that much harder for live venues to break even on shows. Second, it ignores the fact that underage drinking is not nearly as big a problem at live music shows.

When the idea of a live music exception to the 21-only law is brought up with the City Council, their reaction is that bars would begin to feature live music just to circumvent the law. My reaction to that is bring it on! Not only would live music distract people from getting legless, it would provide gainful employment for many more musicians. Let a thousand flowers bloom!

The anti-panhandling ordinance is another law with no exception for musical performances. It boggles my mind that the the law makes no distinction between busking and spare-changers. Busking is to my mind a brilliant thing, a way that musicians can earn a little money and get hours of practice in front of an audience. Busking is also a life-enhancing addition to any urban setting. It is an invitation to pay attention to where you are, instead of just hurrying to your next important life event.

And really, whose sensitivities are so delicate that a few spare-changers can ruin their day? Are downtown merchants really convinced they’re losing customers who are scared off by a few — usually polite — gutter punks? There is already an ordinance on the books that addresses threatening and aggressive panhandlers. It’s true that under the new ordinance one could still solicit money downtown, but only if you’re 10 feet from a building entrance or mobile vendors, 20 feet from an ATM and 15 feet from another panhandler. Are the police going to start carrying tape measures?

A third thing that threatens the character of Iowa City: the surveillance cameras being installed by local merchants. Really? Have local merchants been oblivious to the numerous studies that show cameras have no effect on crime rates? Are they really willing to shoulder the ongoing costs running into thousands of dollars, because of some nebulous hope that it will keep people in check? I think that all it will do in practice is make the downtown area feel like a Panopticon prison.

An editorial in the June 16th Press-Citizen says “…downtown merchants have much cause to celebrate that downtown is becoming a more welcoming and comfortable environment for patrons and their families.” Again, really? Who are these people the merchants think they can lure away from Coral Ridge Mall or on-line shopping? That ship sailed a long time ago. The Old Capitol Mall fell apart as a retail space soon after Coral Ridge opened in 1998, and has been swallowed up by The University of Iowa.

The businesses that survive downtown are the ones that don’t compete with the mall for customers. Instead of embracing diversity and a certain amount of weirdness, the merchants would rather have the downtown area emulate the mall. Hasn’t it occurred to them that there’s already a clean, constantly policed place for people to shop, and it isn’t and never will be downtown Iowa City?

Which brings me to the title of this rant: Whose Iowa City Is This Anyway? It’s clear from the self-congratulatory tone of the June 16th Press-Citizen editorial that they think they know what’s best. The City Council and the Downtown Association have their own ideas, and they’re not listening to the rest of us. They think it is their City, and the rest of us are only allowed her if we don’t offend their sensibilities. It’s not that the ordinances or the cameras will instantly transform the city into something unrecognizable, but rather that the people on the Council and members of the DTA are acting unilaterally to make the town conform to their vision of what it should be.

The recent changes to the law and actions of the merchants comprise an assault on the character of Iowa City. They view as threats the things that made it the only place between the coasts that Allen Ginsberg liked visiting. They think the way forward is to end the traditional relaxed acceptance of the unconventional and occasionally unruly.

If we begin treating street people, buskers and college students like criminals, if we regard every unruly action–no matter how slight–as a cause for panic, if we try to impose more rigid rules about what is and is not acceptable public behavior in the downtown do you know what we will get? Someplace orderly, clean, and quiet, that no one ever goes. In other words, Downtown Cedar Rapids.