Downtown Wilmington is basically a dungy, lowlife strip of college-age bars and tattoo parlors. There are a few uninviting retail shops, but most retail space has been turned over to bars and their late-night, puking patrons. Much of the downtown charm is gone. Wilmington is entering a new cycle: a cycle of neglect and decay that will be almost as bad as the town was before the renovations. Bars, drunken brawls, tattoo parlors--this is the scene after dark. And during the day not much to see on the streets except dirty windows of darkened bars.