Parents and teens alike complain there's almost no entertainment infrastructure for young people in the area outside of sports. Is this a city planning failure, or should families and private businesses be stepping up instead?
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Add your commentMy son got caught by Saginaw PD last summer for 'loitering' with four other kids in a parking lot. They weren't doing anything. The officer actually told him to 'find somewhere else to be.' Sir. Where. That's the whole point. If you're going to enforce loitering ordinances you have an obligation to give kids a legal alternative.
The market has had 20 years to work and we still don't have a single place for teenagers to legally loiter and be teenagers. How's that going for ya?
Born and raised in Saginaw and I'll tell you exactly what happened — every time someone proposes something for teens, the city council gets flooded with complaints from homeowners worried about 'that crowd.' We can't even get a simple skate park approved without a three-year fight. The city absolutely needs to step up. This is a planning failure, plain and simple.
Actually that's not quite right — Saginaw has a community park and some ball fields but the city does not operate two full recreation centers like you're describing. You might be thinking of Keller or Fort Worth facilities nearby. There's a big difference between a park with a pavilion and an actual rec center with programming. That distinction matters a lot in this conversation.
To everyone saying 'private businesses will handle it' — can you name me one investor who's going to sink money into a teen-oriented entertainment venue in a city with no anchor retail, no foot traffic corridor, and a population that's technically still under 25,000? I'll wait. This is exactly the kind of thing that requires public seed investment or it doesn't happen at all.
my friends and i literally just drove around for two hours last friday because there was nothing to do. we ended up in a walmart parking lot off blue mound. im 16. this is fine to yall?
I coached youth baseball here for nine years and even I'll admit the city over-indexed on athletic infrastructure. If your kid doesn't play a sport, the city basically forgot you exist. My daughter is into art and music and I have driven her to Fort Worth for literally everything since she was twelve. Saginaw collected our tax dollars the whole time.
Can we also talk about how this affects kids who don't have parents driving them everywhere? Not every teenager in this city has two parents and a car available every Friday night. A walkable, affordable, city-supported teen space isn't just a nice-to-have — for some kids it's genuinely important for their wellbeing and safety. This is a quality of life issue across income levels.
We moved here from Austin two years ago and honestly this was the first thing we noticed. Back in Austin there were teen-specific programs at every major rec facility, after-school maker spaces, that kind of thing. Here it feels like the attitude is 'if your kid isn't in sports they're on their own.' That mindset is going to cost this city when young families start choosing neighbors over Saginaw.
Hot take: the parking lot thing is a feature not a bug. That's literally how teenagers socialize. I grew up in the 90s doing the exact same thing at the Winn-Dixie and we turned out fine. Stop trying to program every minute of a kid's life.
Okay I'll be the unpopular opinion here: Saginaw has TWO full recreation centers already, one on Old Decatur and one near the community park, so I don't understand why everyone acts like there's nothing. Maybe parents should be driving their kids there instead of letting them wander? Just a thought.
Private businesses should be stepping up. Government shouldn't be in the entertainment business. If there's demand — and apparently there is — someone will open a bowling alley or a laser tag or whatever. The market works.
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