But let's steer clear of personal confrontation and attack, and let us choose dialogue and reasoned debate to maintain and cultivate a civil quality of life. Our parks grace our neighborhoods throughout the city and serve as special places to remind us of that quality of life. And, we must continue to preserve and enhance our city parks. And we'll keep going this year including improvements to Upper Cascades Park, the People's Park renovation, construction of the Clear Creek Trail and the completion of Olcott Park. And we will aggressively pursue more investments downtown so that citizens can live, work and play in Bloomington's downtown 24-hours a day.
Downtown is where quality of life and economic development meet most dramatically.
A thriving and vital downtown is one of the best indicators of quality of life. It's an important factor businesses look for when seeking locations to establish or expand their operations. In that vein, much has been reported about the state of our local economy. Certainly we are in a period of economic transition. However, we should never confuse economic transition with inevitable decline.