Editing San Angelo City (section)

===== El Centro =====

The heart of San Angelo, downtown encompasses a profusion of diverse neighborhoods. Shining skyscrapers rise from the bustling financial nerve center of City Center to define the San Angelo skyline, while a few blocks away tourists crowd the streets of Chinatown hoping to experience a taste of the Orient.

Five-star hotels, fine dining, theaters, nightclubs and other attractions add to the sparkle of the downtown, as do numerous statues, monuments and plazas celebrating the city’s past. And the shadows of the high-rises fall across a few neighborhoods in decay, places of fear and grim despair.

San Angelo got its start in the area now considered downtown, and several of the oldest neighborhoods of the city are found there. In particular, the restored 1800s-era storefronts of Old San Angelo recreate the early days of the city for visitors and schoolchildren.

Now the economic nucleus of San Angelo, the modern downtown is primarily a business district that attracts hundreds of thousands of suburban commuters each day. From the tallest office tower to the humblest old-fashioned grocery, the businesses found downtown play a vital role in the daily commerce of San Angelo.

Residential neighborhoods are also part of downtown, though they tend to be overlooked by outsiders. The housing market consists chiefly of older apartment homes, second-story flats over
storefronts and a scattering of houses.

The people of downtown are as diverse as its neighborhoods, ranging from artists in hip Riverfront lofts to pensioners in cheap Armory rooming hotels. The homeless are a sizable, and very visible, component of the downtown population.

The high concentration of people and businesses in downtown San Angelo gives rise to a booming crime rate, though only a few neighborhoods are thought to be really dangerous. City police have a strong presence throughout the area.