Content Analysis

A Family City in Hard Times

Many people debate about whether or not Evansville, Indiana is a city or a town. A city is an inhabited place greater in size, population, or importance than a town or a village. When someone thinks about a city they think about places like Chicago or New York with their big bright lights, busy atmosphere, popularity and the different characteristics that make it a city such as the tall buildings, tourist’s attractions, large malls, and high population. Evansville is a quiet town and is not well known to those outside of the surrounding area. Evansville doesn’t have anything that makes it more important than a well known city and population has slowly decreased throughout the years. It is also a small town with a population of approximately 122,000. For the past several years city officials are taking steps the make Evansville more of a city and to attract more people from the surroundings areas. Plans for future construction are in the works to help build new family attractions, fix back-up traffic, and bring in more visitors from the surrounding areas. Most projects are still going through research to decide whether or not Evansville will benefit from the new attraction while others require millions of dollars and time.

One of the first new attractions to help better Evansville was a children’s park called Kids Kingdom. It’s located in front of the river right before Marina Point. It’s a wooden playground surrounded by open fields, small trails, and gazebos which makes it the perfect attraction for families. Across from the park is a nice sitting area complete with another gazebo for people to sit and enjoy the weather when it’s nice outside. Another attraction along the river is the LST 325 WWII warship. It’s a historic attraction for the whole family to tour the warship. After the construction the city decided to build a children’s museum. The children’s museum is also a family gets together attraction that is fun for all ages. The museum is located in the old central library. A new central library was built downtown across from the Executive Inn. This project was to increase the downtown area. Old buildings have also been renovated and turned into lofts and condos. Evansville is a family city and most of the new attractions are attractions that are fun for the whole family. The riverfront was also renovated to attract more visitors to hang out in front of the river. The Casino Aztar is the only casino for several miles so many people come from out of town to hang out at the boat and stay the night. The casino is one of our largest attractions on the weekends. The Fall Festival is one of the nation’s biggest street festivals that is held the first full week of October located on the Westside. It features games, rides, live entertainment, and food. This is an excellent tourist attraction and has been for over 80 years. Another new spot for Evansville is a restaurant named Red Robin. It is located on the East side of Evansville and is nearing finish and hopes to employ approximately 100 employers. It is located in the old Smokey Bones BBQ and renovations cost between $1 million to $1.7 million. The owners hope to attract many new customers when it opens towards the end of March. Evansville has also been recently introduced to a healthy grocery store chain called Aldi. The first one was opened on December 8 on the corner of Burkhardt and Oak Grove Road. The second one was opened on January 30 on Llyod Expressway and Rosenburg Road.

Construction of the Lloyd Expressway began in 2007. Its purpose is to eliminate stop lights at the intersection of Fulton Avenue and the Lloyd Expressway, one of the city’s busiest intersections. The intersection will be revamped to become a full cloverleaf and will cost approximately $27 million. People pushed for this same construction many years ago but money was the issue. Construction for US 41 and Lloyd Expressway location will follow the Fulton and Lloyd cloverleaf but is not scheduled to begin till 2010. Evansville is known as the stop-light city for our numerous stop lights and city officials hope that people’s frustrations with the Expressway will ease as the stop lights are taken down.

Construction will begin for Howell Park to add a small water park located behind Howell swimming pool. ARC Construction is in charge of the project and hope to have it completed by June, 2009. The pool will have a beach area with water jets, slides for toddlers, and a 150 foot slide. Following the announcement of this plan is also the Pigeon Creek Greenway Passage. This project is included in a group of projects. It will start at the Uhlhorn Trailhead, past the Pigeon Creek Levee and Kratzville Road and end close to Cody Street. These new projects will cost approximately three million dollars. Evansville currently has two other water parks, Hartke’s located on the eastside next to Swonder’s Ice Arena and Burdaht located on the Westside. Following the group projects are plans to renovate the Marchland Bridge to be an overlook of the Ohio. They hope to have these projects completed by the end of 2009. Each new attraction adds more things for families to do and can help increase family relationships. In August construction will begin for the new Robert Stadium. After long deliberation, they decided that it would be better to build a new stadium rather than to remodel the old one.

Haynie’s corner, which was once known for its popular prostitute hangout, is now being turned into an Art Colony. During the summer it offers activities for kids and adults to come and enjoy the art and make some of their own. It also host an annual arts festival that is nationally known. In 2007, the Arts Council of Southwestern Indiana opened a new art gallery. It’s located on the Innovation Pointe building located on Main Street called the Bower-Suhrheinich Foundation Gallery. Besides the art that attracts viewers it also attracts people by host lunch time shows of local dancers, singers, and musicians.

The Mesker Park Zoo has added a Botanical Garden to its park. The garden has over 600 freely movable animals. Visitors can walk through a bridge like trail to view the animals, exotic plants and trees. The park also has a petting zoo, paddle boats, bumper boats, canoes, trams with tour information. The exhibits focus on the vanishing rainforests. A new project is in store for a new South American Rainforest exhibit that will expand over 10,000 feet,

USI’s spring 2008 enrollment was at a record high. More people are going back to school to further their education due to the downward fall of the economy. Increase of college graduates will decrease poverty rates. USI construction will begin this summer to build a new front-entry onto the campus. Construction will interfere with parking but by the time fall classes begin there will be more parking areas available. A new Valley parking will have a 20 bike locker for students, faculty, or staff to lock their bikes up for free for the academic year. They will be tearing down about 30 trees for the new bike route but will be planting 130 more once construction is done.

The new attractions are family attractions to get people to come out more and enjoy the city. The average household is about 3.05 and the majority of the city has are family households. There is always new construction and renovating going on to increase the atmosphere of our city. Evansville is on the rise but is it the wrong time? With our nation being in a recession should we be worried about new water parks and stadiums? Family attractions have long term effects when relationships between kids and their parents increase but do parents have the money to afford these new attractions? There’s nothing better than turning a city around and making it better but right now people aren’t spending as much as they use too. Pulling people in from cities outside of our reach will increase population and activity even to those who are just visiting. What kind of attention can Evansville expect when outsiders come in and will it be a positive one? Evansville can expect many new things in the future and everyone living in the city is looking forward to it. With some of the projects being ready for the summer and money being low, more people will stay home rather than travel out of town and spend hundreds of dollars somewhere else. There are plenty of activities for family’s to engage in without spending a ton of money. Evansville’s future is bright and maybe one day we can become a well known city.