Arcadia Creek

Looking west toward St. Augustine's parish from the Cancer Center.

For most of my life, and for decades before I was born, the Arcadia Creek ran underneath the buildings and parking lots in downtown Kalamazoo. If you knew where to look there were places you could see the water, but I imagine folks lived their whole lives in Kalamazoo without realizing the town had a downtown creek.

In the early 1990s the city daylighted the creek, with this result. Much better, though it's still in a straitjacket. A couple blocks east it breaks free of the channel into a park that serves as a festival site.

A great improvement