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A recent Times story detailed how Clearwater is becoming cool.
That has nothing to do with the temperature. Clearwater, like the rest of Central Florida, is as muggy as ever.
What it means is that Clearwater, in the view of some observers, is becoming hip.
How can one tell that a change is under way?
Coachman Park in downtown Clearwater has become a favorite venue for alternative rock concerts with their mosh pits and crowd surfing. Other times, the waterfront park pulses with Latin music.
Teenagers or young adults who like to dress up and go out with friends late on weekend nights now may not head to Ybor City, which would have been de rigueur in the past, but to several Clearwater nightclubs that are drawing big, noisy crowds of young people.
Even the public library, of all places, seems to be attracting a new, more hip crowd. Poet Nikki Giovanni recently read poetry there to a standing-room-only crowd, and Alfred Fornay, former beauty editor of Essence magazine, was invited to talk with young people about his book, Born Beautiful: The African American Teenager's Complete Beauty Guide.
At City Hall, officials are talking about ways to make Coachman Park function even better as a concert venue and trying to figure out a way to foster development of a funky arts district near downtown.
What's going on here? For decades, Clearwater's young residents complained that the city offered little for them except the beach. Even there, they had to create their own fun. Cruising beach streets was the No. 1 form of entertainment on weekends for those who stayed around town. For more variety, they had to get in their cars and travel: to Orlando, to Ybor's clubs, more recently to St. Petersburg's BayWalk.
Those were the places where cool resided.
Clearwater's new image isn't developing by accident. The city government is making a concerted effort to better serve the interests of its young residents.
Perhaps the effort is an outgrowth of a new youthfulness in City Hall. City commissioners are younger, and several are the parents of teenagers. The same goes for many city administrators, department heads and staffers involved in planning cultural and recreational activities.
Their dedication to serving that under-served population has remained through substantial criticism from residents bothered by the music, noise, dress or mannerisms of youths attending city events.
But the effort is not just aimed at young people. City officials generally want to offer more variety in city events so they can satisfy more diverse interests.
They are wise to invest so much time and interest in the endeavor. After all, city government and its elected officials are obligated to represent the needs of all the city's residents, not just those of a certain age, color or lifestyle. But also, a city that abandons its young people encourages them to leave and thereby limits its horizons. And serving the diverse interests of a community of individuals helps enrich the city's cultural environment.
But this new day may take some getting used to among Clearwater residents for whom the appearance of Steve and Eydie at Ruth Eckerd Hall was the ultimate cultural experience.