Morgantown has lost ’best little city’ charm

Scheryll Richards, Morgantown
Our “best little city,” once called, is no longer. It has lost much of its uniqueness and has become more a WVU city.
While WVU does provide jobs, it doesn’t participate with local government enough or have to pay taxes to help Morgantown. Beautiful land is turned into more buildings and fewer and fewer green areas are available.
Our city parks are no longer kept up due to lack of funds or mismanaged. Downtown is no longer a shopping area but a place for students to hit bars or grab fast food.
Our firefighters’ and police officers’ pensions are sacrificed for other agenda items. We have nice rail trails, but parts of them are unsafe, and the homeless like to yell at the pedestrians and bikers.
Our roads are an embarrassment to people outside the state. That’s not just in Morgantown, it’s everywhere in West Virginia.
So where is Morgantown, because its downtown doesn’t exist anymore. I will say that our Market Pavilion is a plus for our city. The sidewalks have improved. The Boys and Girls Club helps younger children. The public library offers many people a place to learn and read.
But take a walk from the top of High Street to the end of the street. Count how many bars there are including ones down side streets. A handful of stores exist but not like it was. Once I did the Chocolate Lovers Day and realized surprisingly just how many bars there actually were.
I don’t have any answers after living here 38 years, but it seems so sad that we’ve lost our uniqueness.