I really wasn't meaning to "bait" anyone. I was just saying that the demographic in the room seemed to me to really just favor one particular argument. If anything that is the fault of young people being apathetic. But, at my table specifically two older gentlemen really took over the conversation and pushed their ideas on us while not letting anyone else speak much. That eventually reflected itself in the end discussion. Nothing very visionary or that exciting for my age group. Again, some ideas were cool and I could totally agree with, others however I just think really missed the mark and there was no counter vision.
That would drive me up a wall. The non-stakeholders with more than a little say and the actual [potential] stakeholders either apathetic or oblivious to their potential role in shaping downtown, and not having a saw.
The older I personally get, the pickier I get with any sort of interactions with "older" people (>55 years old). There are certainly plenty of cool older people, but I find more and more that those generations annoy me at best, perturb me on average, and offend me at worst. To hear them all gathered around a round table discussing design/planning for the rebirth of a new sunbelt downtown that will ultimately need to cater to those <35 today in order to be successful is just a mind melt. If it were up to me, I'd to hell with age discrimination and ban them from certain conversations/"charettes". Lol