Wildwood Dreamin'


        So Somebody asked me to envision what downtown Wildwood would look like if I had a few megamillion. They said hay Bob,(farmers I guess) draw us some pictures and give us an outline of what you would do. I said Ok I'll give it a go but between the Government,and the environmentalists it would take 100 years to get all the proper permits. Do you know how hard it is to convince everyone RADICAL CHANGES could be better for the people AND the environment? Just trying to get everyone to agree would take 20 years, if then. Sheesh this is New Jersey not Iraq ....................but here goes cause It doesn't hurt to dream.....& I do.

                1.. I would first get an aerial photograph so I could plan all the parking and traffic patterns before hand (want to make everything accesible you know).The idea is to plan by looking at the big picture and inserting little pictures into that.
                2.. Then I'd ride around looking for a couple or more blocks of land I could buy. I'd start right around the center of town on the East side.
                3..Next I'd dig a nice canal from the ocean to that land I bought and I'd dig a big hole, and around that hole I'd build some middle income, hurricane friendly, houses.  I'd wire them with lots of phone lines and these things called intranets and cable modems so people could work at home and they could look out over the water every once in a while if they wanted to. That would kinda build up a nice year round generation-X working class who could connect to their offices in maybe Phila. or Maryland. Cause there's just not enough local work here after the summer,This would bolster the winter economy and also get more people out of the rat race so they could be happier and more productive.
                 4...While the crews are digging that big hole and the Xers are talking into their cellulars and the beepers are going off, I'd go West a few hundred feet and put new storefronts on the buildings  and have maybe 8 or 10 food places all on the same block and on both sides of the street and in the middle of that would be a common courtyard.(who here can tell me they don't like going to the H...n Mall once in a while?)Around that I'd place my retail stores and the shopkeepers could really cool stuff in them, of course I'd have to keep my parking and traffic flow easy so the people can get to all these refurbished establishments. (remember the aerial map?) To give you a better idea, pretend your a giant and take the existing Unh Mall? and squeeze the ends and knead it and pull it so it doesen't look like this.============= it looks like this.[=0=] well not exactly but I hope you get the idea. More short and fat instead of long and thin
                 5... While that was all going on I'd start looking for ATTRACTIONS that would compliment the downtown area and replace the old single family homes that through the years were turned into small ugly (OK not so charming) multi family apartments.
I mean we have a LOT of places to stay we just need more things TO DO . Some of those houses I'd restore back to there former charming selves, not all.
                      Right now your saying Whoaa what kind of "attractions"? Well let's keep it at the dream stage for now,but if you really want to start a brand new "NOBODY has done it here ORIGINAL business"and your SERIOUS  I'll answer all inquiries.

                 6...OK so now I take a walk back past my big hole, only now I'm calling it a lagoon cause it's really starting to take shape and I take a stroll next to the canal and I walk out on to that big ol' beach we have there and I start laying out the walkways for the tents and campers. I start planning the showers and restrooms that get tied into the MUA but I keep everything modular cause we might(will) get storms in the future. I wanna make sure we don't have bad water spilling from the pipes. The walkways and stuff shouldn't be floating out to Gilligan's Island in a storm either. Again, the words are sinking in and your saying, Modular?  Whoaa tents? Yeah, tents, tents for camping on the beach cause all those flophouses and ratholes (yeah I said that ..ratholes) that people rent out for such a high price to the working kids won't be there anymore or they'll be attractions or fixed up for the retired folks. Well we DO want the nice kids to work here and save for college and give themselves a sense of being part of the community right? WE do want this to be a fun place right? Anyway, its my dream so RVs and tents it is.ON THE BEACH.
                  7...I haven't said anything about landscaping yet but what do you remember from your vacation? LOTS of shrubbery and trees and vines .So step 7 is Landscaping and a lot of it, you can be around a ton of people and still feel isolated if its done properly. Plus we have to start adding habitat and paying more attention to the flora and fauna.No, they are not girls from AC. Now that we have global warming and the temps are rising, palm trees will be acclimated here year-round before you know it. Think about that you 100- year flood plan engineers. Oh and while I'm at it....I'll add sand dunes, have to put the sand from the lagoon somewhere hunh?

            That is it for starters and I haven't even touched on geothermal heating or recycling our water with plants and phragmities. All tried and proven methods by the way, and I haven't pulled out the drawings and pictures yet. The recycling of all those buildings we're tearing down is a high priority too. Your also probably thinking how's the local government and the people going to agree on all this ? Then there's the questions like, What's in it for me? How we gonna do that? etc, etc. Somebody asked me to dream and I'll be doing that in these pages first....After that comes the Nightmares.
                                                  More installments to follow.........