Clark: Downtown Spokane Lacking

Here’s what Doug Clark observed on Friday, when he took a State of the (Spokane) Downtown tour.

• 11:03 a.m. – Barely away from the newspaper, my travels lead me to two large and foot-flattened piles of excrement (Human? Wildebeest?) plopped in the middle of the sidewalk on Lincoln Street, across the street from the Agave restaurant. Is this City of Choice material? Don’t think so.
• 11:05 a.m. – Heading east on Riverside Avenue, I pass a urine-stained doorway and arrive at the corner of Post Street and Riverside in time to chat with an amiable security guard. “You should have plenty to write about, believe me,” he says, when I tell him what I’m up to.
• 11:10 a.m. – The words barely leave his lips when an obnoxiously loud young woman in bright blue drools the world’s longest loogie onto the sidewalk. It’s a bad choice in any civilized culture, but none of her loitering pals, about a dozen hard-looking street toughs, seems to mind. Full column here.

Question: Do you avoid downtown Spokane, if you can help it?