I think family friendly is fine during the holidays, when we have ice skating, tubing, etc. But otherwise, I agree...downtown and Bricktown are not, and will probably never be, areas that will attract primarily families. The Adventure District is a better place to emphasize families, with the Zoo and Science Museum. However, if you want to at least make Bricktown an option for families, one thing that could do that is getting the train between Bricktown and the Adventure District up and working. People might be interested in staying in Bricktown, with its hotels and restaurants and hopping on a train to the Adventure District. It might stimulate development in both areas. If not, I agree, we should focus on that area for adults. If you look at the demographics of people living downtown, as has been said, it's not families. Everyone I know downtown is either pre- or post-kids (or close).

And again, I certainly don't think attracting lower income groups is ultimately going to attract higher income groups downtown, because what you have to build for people with lower incomes will never be remodelable for higher incomes. The building quality nowadays isn't good enough, as materials and labor are now expensive. That leaves us stuck permanently with people of lower incomes, and we definitely need a mixture. Our problem is that we don't have many attractive, but aging, buildings to attract the young creative class. The city had the right idea....we're just impatient. In older cities, the wealthy built right around downtown because there was no transit. Over time, and with the availabilty of transit and then ultimately the car, some of them moved farther out, leaving beautiful old homes that eventually, as they aged, became more affordable for the younger and more creative. We don't have 200 years of row house building that created that cycle, and we tore down half the buildings that might have worked as lofts or second to fourth floor walkups. Our city wasn't wrong in their idea that higher end housing would eventually attract lower income groups, it's just that it takes too long. And I'm going to argue that $150,000 to $800,000 housing is as good as it's going to get in new construction. You don't have to be wealthy to afford those prices, just middle class. The people that cannot pay that much will need to look to older neighborhoods close to downtown that are more affordable, or rent. That would be a more attractive prospect if we had mass transit. I've mentioned it before, but in Chicago, my daughters cannot afford to live downtown...that is for the wealthy. So, they live 2 miles out, but they have bus service.