Also, there are other things in Whistler, such as St Bridgets, Whistler United Methodist, and the old Masons lodge which could all be renovated, as could the homes along Warren Street, Whistler Street, the northern part of Gould, and the sections of Main Street near McMillians BBQ, not to mention, Turner Road, much of it was built before 1915
The problem is though, all these structures need major work, the difference between some of those homes on Turner and those in Oakleigh is, Oakleigh has much better upkeep
But Prichard has to be able to provide better services before people start coming back in, a city Prichards size, with its particularly location and its well, societal issues, it needs a police force of about 115 officers
The fact is, I travel St Stephens alot to go back and forth from my cousins, and I saw an incident, where basically, you had one Prichard car and 5 Mobile cars (squad)
In fact, they could stand to pay all city employees more once they get the money
And also, all these renovation efforts, they cost money
The old train station needs to be renovated, but renovating that ain't enough, and if we do do that, we also need to try and at least replicate the old railroad tracks which have since been uprooted from the Rebel Road area
Also, if its possible, running Rebel Road thru including finding a way to bridge the creek would be positive, because there is alot of land up there, which, could be developed but for piss poor access
There is even the potential to develop waterfront neighborhoods in Plateau (though thats Mobile side of Plateau, if they did prop up, it would help Wilson Avenue and Craft Highway) but, in order to do that, the old papermill site needs to be cleaned up
And they need to take a good look at Craft/MLK Dr and make a determination what should say and what should go, old churches should stay, houses built after 1945, their demolition should at least be entertained, because Prichard has an abundent of housing, the problem is, dilapdidation, and also, much of it was built crappily, especially WWII and on
Prichard also needs to work on drainage (obviously) and I personally am convinced Prichard does not need to have its own water board for a while
You can't get two inches of rain in that area without sewage overflows, and this consitutes a problem
and if the system is that bad in Prichard, it ain't much better in Chickasaw
If Cooper was younger, I'd say appoint him to a reform commission, along with the Chickasaw councilmen who used to be on in Prichard and a few others
See what they need to trim and what they don't, for example, it might make much more sense to leave water and garbage pickup to people who can better do it, like Mobile
And as painful as it might be at first, they need to readjust their revenue system, and they need to be able to regulate more thoroughly what kind of businesses set up shop in their city, and they need to be able to crackdown on slum lords
Right now, Prichard as a municipal unit, is not given the powers by the state legislature which it needs to well, try and revive itself
Powers that places like Mobile and Birmingham have
Also, if you drive on Wilson Avenue near the line and the Harts, you'll see a lot with old cars abandoned on it, and you can still see the sign from it
It was a VW dealership, and it held out until the late 70s, the Mobile County Health Depts old office is also there
Now, where are most good car dealerships in Moco
They are either on the Skyline, the Beltline, and the Airport area.
UJ used to run its dealership in Trinity Gardens and they stayed their till 2001, you know, so, if you live in northern Mobile County, your car lot options are kind of well, squelched, but if you could get a few dealerships to open near UM up in Kushla, not only does car sales bring in big money (Daphne is run on car sales taxes and speeding tickets) to a smaller scale city, it also encourages more development to set up around it
They're even building gated communities within the city of Prichard (so thats not exactly a good thing, but the fact that these people are willing to locate here, instead of going to the Saraland side, shows there is some hope)
There are very attractive pieces of real estate in the city in and of themself, the challenge is, getting Prichtown to the point that by say 2025, (which was a year I chose for a special reason) they could be a legitamate housing market
the UM area poses the greatest oppurtunity, and if that area is developed into a high end area, both retail and residentially, then the money garnered from it, can be pumped into the rest of town to help spur development there
Right now, the key focus of Prichard should be to try and turn Eight Mile and Kushla into big markets, and maybe, improve their image enough that they could extend the city limits a little bit, because if they don't take that land then it will go to Mobile or Saraland
And with the money you got from there, you could focus on renovating Whistler and trying to recouperate the Prichard Mall
Greers could help out in this regards, cause since they moved their HQ to Main Street, theyve been able to expand rapidly across the Southeast, they could certainly give back
Also, if some higher end retailers could be convinced to open up in the 165 corridor, it could do wonders for the city, and might convince people to come back to Wilson
I dont know where PWSB gets its money, has to come somewhere from Prichard, but it needs to be abolished, they should turn that over to Mobile, which can actually run a water system, and use the money freed up to hire more cops and firemen so that well, if Prichard had a police force of 100 rather than 40, folks would be more ready to do business there
What did Prichard in is, it tried to assume all the trappings of larger cities in its glory days, so when the bottom fell thru, they had all this crap which they couldnt pay for
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