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Our Sense of Place
Bricks laid today, bricks laid a hundred years ago. Apartments today, warehouses a hundred years ago. Very few areas display that kind of variety; few districts have that much character. That uniqueness gives Downtown, the Old Market, Benson, Dundee, and North and South Omaha a sense of place. You always know where you are.
That sense of place anchors us, helps us relate to our neighbors, and gives us a landscape for our rituals and our follies. It’s a sense that few enjoy in their daily lives.
Somehow, most of us have lost our senses of place. In the last several decades, we have built on open land using modern transportation and technology that all seem to make traditional places seem messy and obsolete.
It is easy to mistake uniformity and newness for progress. Trouble is, one of the things that makes a city great is its own sense of place. We all want and need that sense. We all want to live in a habitat of quality.
It’s a rich heritage and subtle advantage we enjoy in Omaha’s historic neighborhoods. To experience a district’s sense of place you only need to start walking.
As you walk, you will notice that the district has been created through individual actions over a long time. Buildings relate to their neighbors; use and reuse of space help define place.
Some streets and buildings are like classical music. The Court House says there is solid, serous business going on here. For nearly a century, it has played its well-known and important tune.
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Other places are like modern music. The Qwest Center, new and exciting, plays a sweeping, big theme that signals the dawn of a new day on the River.
In addition, there is pop music. The new North and South 24th Street is beginning to groove on love, games, fun and relaxation in hip-hop and salsa.
Jazz is here, too. It is a genuinely American tune played by an old warehouse that now jumps with residents or a firehouse that swings with food and drink. The sidewalks improvise as discussion forums for politics, religion, art or the affairs of the day.
That great sound and feel is something we ought to be proud of and protect. Just as we take steps to ensure that future generations will be able to enjoy the natural environment, we need to look out for our sense of place.
Preserving our buildings, streets and public places is more that having a quaint or unusual venue for shopping, dining and entertainment, it’s about being stewards of who we are. It is about where we come from and where we are going.
It just makes sense.
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