Arts help revitalize cities

By Bill Strother, Herald-Times

bstrother@heraldt.com

When Carmel Mayor Jim Braynard took office in 1996, his Indianapolis suburb was among the richest and fastest growing cities in the state.

Its downtown, by contrast, was a forgotten corner with empty shop fronts, vacant lots along the tracks (now the Monon Trail) and modest houses, some in disrepair. The old town center was the remnant of a small farm community, one that had been gobbled up and squelched by suburbia.

As writer Gertrude Stein famously noted of her own hometown of Oakland, Calif., after returning from overseas to find her childhood home gone, there was just "no there" in Carmel's downtown.

Today, in Old Town Carmel, there is. It is being remade into the Carmel Arts and Design District, established in 2003 to bring new life to Old Town.