Let’s Talk “Garden” City

Locally, and even within the Treasure Valley Region, someone can volunteer a comment or historical antidote about this ‘inner’ city area in the Boise Metro Marketplace. More often it reflects the changes of what “use to be” and not what “can be”, a revitalized inner city neighborhood, incorporating the spirit of community in which to work, live, and partner in ‘synchronicity’ of life.

“Synchronicity” is defined as the simultaneous coexistence of more than one event or occurrence. Traditionally this explains the emergence of towns and cities throughout the history mankind. It can occur at a crossroad, a river, a cluster of dwellings, a product to market, a gathering place to exchange ideas or goods, a connector, or a place of repose. All of the aforementioned can easily be applied to the historical positioned ‘Garden City’. Over time it morphed from small farms, tenant worker housing, trade shops, and gardens and orchards to light manufacturing and distribution of goods that normally support a city’s (Boise) growth and needs.

This is not unlike larger metropolitan cities found in the east. As these larger cities of the east expanded their central core to new interstate roads together with ‘burbareas’, many of these outer ‘burbareas’ fell short in capturing the essence known to the central core of the town. The cities then began to reassess, rezone, redesigned, and revitalized their now dysfunctional older support areas. Turned once consider marginal areas of their city into vibrant, productive lifestyle centers, and thus were able recaptured the community essence, in which to live, work, and create. Does this sound familiar? It should, as it is the core element of Garden City’s new Comprehensive Plan.

Obviously this concept is not original. Capturing the successes of these larger metro cities or ‘the best of the best’ is what we can do here. Let’s be realistic, the greater metro area is growing. It is the nature or natural essence of the city experience. For revitalization or change to occur, we begin with small pockets or seeds of new life. We begin by starting in underutilized areas, enhancing those areas which function as crossroads, intersections, a pass-through boulevard, a greenbelt, or commercial and retail market centers, and yes, affordable housing for livable neighborhoods. As these new projects take hold and approach an achievable plan, we now begin to reshape our habitat for the city, a community, and a neighborhood lifestyle.

Location, location, location! When you assess the location of Garden City you have access, within 10 minutes, to a downtown, an interstate, a hospital, a mountain pass, a supermarket, a retail center, a health care provider, a repair shop, a shop to refinish that antique, or buy an RV. It can be even be better, if you could walk to the coffee shop, the work-out center, boys and girls club, an ethnic food shop, the deli, the cheese store, a butcher, the plaza market, or stroll or bike along the river. Your child may even shout across the courtyard, “Can Jimmy come out and play?”

Enough talk! Now is the time to participate, invest, partner in a meaningful change, and create a ‘living community’ to which others can model. It is often referred to the ‘power of one’, but it is truly a collective, of people, a forward thinking comprehensive plan, a methodology, having all the city services required, and desire of all vested property owners recognizing the need for action now. When this happens we all enjoy the “synchronicity” of city life.

Jan Ozimkiewicz is a commercial agent with SelEquity Real Estate. Applying his early training as an architect, he worked in the cities of Chicago, New York, and Phoenix, for fortune 100 corporations. Being in their corporate real estate department, a focus was in acquisition, disposition, site selection, facility planning, and property management.