Originally omaha was a place for whores and lawless people before it was a real state. (vs across the river in council bluffs) That flipped sides sometime. Recently omaha has sprawed west. I go to Central highschool, named when that WAS central omaha. It's now downtown. yeah, Omaha didn't really exist beyond 90th st not that long ago. Now though, everything out there is new and expensive, with plenty of yuppies willing to drive 2 hours to get to work each day and pay for all the new toys. It's a wierd place out there. ALL the houses look the same. Same 4 colors, all pastel. All have a basic room layout. All have 2 garages. All have at least one damn SUV parked there. No trees. A few houses have some meter high things imported there, but you can look out across a sea of roofs. You NEED a car to go from anywhere to anywhere else.
I myself live in what I would call the dead center of the city, near dundee. (an area that sort of likes being quaint, sorta) It's a good place for electricians to work, being close to oppd (at least it was a good place to move to, prices have skyrocketed) Around here there are plenty of mom and pop type shops around here, but I can see the chains coming, and the scumbags out west won't go to anything but outback steak house for steak. grrrrr. There's a couple of parks withing walking distance of my house, but I don't really go there anymore, too busy, or at least pretending to be busy.
As far as preseving the city as I want it, and protecting it from the onslaught of big corperate: good luck. This is america dude, if there's no money in it, it's damn hard to do anything. and as far as keeping things the same; it's hopeless and impossible. Existance will always change. Just try to change it for the better.