$3.3 Million RiverWalk Renovation Covered In Graffiti; Project Outpaces Policing
The multimillion-dollar project hasn’t even been completed, though it is already covered in graffiti as downtown crime continues to outpace policing efforts.
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Graffiti adorns the unfinished landmark renovation of the Riverwalk in Uptown Columbus, Georgia. The vandalism is the most recent example of crime outpacing the city’s failed development efforts as crime and poverty continue to rise throughout the city.
Image Credit:
Muscogee Muckraker
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Graffiti adorns the unfinished landmark renovation of the Riverwalk in Uptown Columbus, Georgia. The vandalism is the most recent example of crime outpacing the city’s failed development efforts as crime and poverty continue to rise throughout the city.
The $3.3 million RiverWalk renovation project that bears the city’s name in concrete has been covered in graffiti before the project has even been completed.
The vandalism serves as yet another example of criminal activity continuing to rise in what many had previously considered to be the “safer” parts of the Uptown Columbus area.
As shown in various social media posts throughout the day on November 14, 2022, criminal thugs appear to have hopped into the fenced-off construction zone and spray painted graffiti on the unfinished concrete wall that bears the city’s name.
The wall was intended to serve as a “beacon” for the Fountain City, highlighting its sense of “amazing” development.
That “development” continues to outpace the policing required to secure and protect it.
Philip Adams, a project engineer with the city’s engineering department, spoke about the project at its onset in March of this year.
“This should be a permanent solution … It’s going to be a pretty cool project. It’s going to be very good for the area … This is going to open up additional areas for residents and visitors to enjoy the riverwalk,” Adams said in an interview given to the Ledger-Enquirer back in March 2022.
Dan Gilbert, the owner of Whitewater Express, also weighed-in on the project within the same article published by the Ledger in March. At the time, Gilbert spoke to how the development would allow tourists to enjoy events such as the Kayak World Cup:
“The environment around the river is attracting tourists from all over the southeast … And it enhances that as another spot where people can enjoy the river.”
As city officials appear to remain preoccupied with driving “tourists” to the Fountain City in hopes of bolstering tax revenue, its developments appear to largely become blank canvases for the city’s rising criminal activity.
The RiverWalk has also become a known hotspot for sexual assaults and incidents of indecent exposure.
While petty crime like the graffiti that now adorns the city’s unfinished $3.3 million landmark project may seem negligible to some, it is often indicative of deeper, darker problems that plague a city as it enters a state of urban decay.
Urban decay, the downward spiral of a city’s demise that can readily be viewed in cities like Detroit, are largely defined by a trifecta of three metrics: increased crime, increased poverty, and decreased population.
Columbus is currently experiencing all three of these telltale symptoms at unprecedented rates.
When cities experience increased rates of violent crime like Columbus has in recent years, smaller crimes often begin to manifest in new ways and in new locations. Petty crime, such as the RiverWalk’s recent graffiti, begin to appear as criminals begin to feel emboldened; they feel as if they are “getting away” without any consequences and hence feel free to spread their activity to places they once believed they couldn’t.
The city’s unpoliced development projects — such as the unfinished RiverWalk project and the Dragonfly Trails — serve as those new places. Statistically, other private developments such as the newly-planned “Highside Market” and “MidCity Yards” will also succumb to the increased rates of petty and violent crime as they continue to rise throughout the surrounding area.
Selectively patrolling only the “safer” areas doesn’t stifle the increased crime, either. If that were the case, the spread from higher-crime areas wouldn’t have occurred in the first place. Instead, much like a flowing river, the flow must be proactively stopped at the source.
With such strong correlations between crime, education, and poverty, it doesn’t appear as if city officials are planning on stopping the source of the city’s crime problem any time soon as they remain focused on “tourism” instead.
