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In actuality, they rate us number 2 "coolest" city in south Florida--
2. Lake Worth
Pro: Lake Worth is perhaps the epicenter of Palm Beach County's arts scene.
The quirky city is a magnet for the artists and musicians of Palm Beach
County, and thanks to venues like Propaganda, you can hear live music
just about every day of the week. Tack on great food and a happening
beach and you've got one hell of a city.
Con: Unfortunately, some of the places that made
Lake Worth so special have been disappearing lately. Within the past
year, the city has lost Coastars Coffee Bar and Bamboo Room, two awesome
local businesses that provided a home for artists and locals alike.
This trend of local talent evaporating is, to say the least, troubling.
Lake Worth also has its own utility company, which makes electric rates
high, and crime is a persistent annoyance.
Bottom Line: Lake Worth has that perfect mix of weird that makes a great city.
Click here to view all the other ratings
12 comments:
The article is a year and a half old but, hey, thanks!
The article on this is dated 1-26-15.
But hey, good news is positive news at any time whether it is 3 days or 2 years. Hey?
I like that they cite the funky arts scene that we have been trying so hard to cultivate and promote with everything from the Street Painting Festival to LULA to the Urban Arts Lofts and now Benzaiten Center. Make no mistake, this article in a Broward paper that is widely read in most of Southeast Florida, ranking us right behind Delray Beach as the coolest city, is just the type of media attention that boosts our local economy.
I have found it true that once you get outside our little world of negativity and all the things that are wrong with Lake Worth; once you are outside, looking in, we are viewed in a good light. It is only when you live here and read all the blogs that you feel we are the only ones dealing with crime, pot holes and deficient public services.
Fact is many people WANT to come here, live here, work here. Why? Because we ARE a "cool city" and possibly because we are NOT Delray.
When Lake Worth is ranked 42nd in crime in the nation, I would suppose we have a HUGE problem. Other cities have crime, of course, but for a small little city such as ours, we have our share of slum and blight that all breeds crime...way too much of it. And the commission ignores it.
Very good news! Thanks, Lynn.
Ignores it? I don't think so. You think Delray Beach doesn't have crime? West Palm Beach? 42nd in the Nation? In what murder? B&E's? Sure we have our share of lowlifes, Sponges and even gang activity. But people still want to live here. Unfortunately that includes lowlifes. It is all relative.
The article uses the term "gentrification" describing Delray Beach as the epitome of it. They took a city much like Lake Worth and made improvements like Lake Worth is doing which over time drives out the blight and slum, i.e. gentrification.
But you seem to fight all efforts to do the one and continue to complain about the other.
Lake Worth lost a lot of ground with neglect by past commissions. This one is finally addressing the neglect. They might just be too ambitious. That is no reason to return to the cause of the neglect in the first place.
@8:58--well, I disagree with you in total. Not one thing has changed under this commission other than you spending money and wanting to get us deeper in debt and creating liens on every property in this city. You have allowed more affordable housing to be built than any commission in the history of Lake Worth and I don't think that is an accomplishment. Yes, you enacted ordinances to clean up the blight...thanks to William Waters who was hired by our former city manager.
Paaaaleeeeze. It was not me. You have to go into debt from time to time to get large infrastructure projects done. If you read above, you'd see that I was opposed to the plan they pushed. It was too much debt. Most people said they were willing incur some debt. It only failed by a handful of votes.
Your accusation that we built more affordable housing is quite funny when you think about it. Most of the "affordable" houses we built for owner occupiers are appraising at $150K plus or minus. Believe it or not, that is still considered affordable. And with that appreciation, it has brought up the value of the housing around them.
And just what type of housing do you think can be built in our affordable neighborhoods?
I know you can't answer that question.
This has been addressed on so many occasions that it is now boring. Let's stop putting the cart before the horse. Stop trying to finance infrastructure by a huge money grab and never giving us the facts. You lost by 25 votes with a deck that was so stacked against the voting public it was sickening. Give the other side $50,000 to run its campaign and then we can talk.
No. I was on the winning side. The side that voted "no". Why can't you understand that? I am FOR some mechanism to get some comprehensive work done to upgrade our infrastructure. Grants would be great.
So I guess the answer to my question above about what type of housing do you build in our affordable neighborhoods is..... AFFORDABLE HOUSING!!!
I think it's great that we are getting positive press, but The New Times is a source and paper that caters to the young and urban.
Of course they think we are fool, but things like crime, taxes, code enforcement are less important to its readership.
Way to turn a positive into a negative. Sad sack.
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