In the overrated (only because it was 20 minutes too long) movie comedy "Stripes," an underachieving cabbie played by Bill Murray pleads with his had-it-up-to-here girlfriend not to walk out on him.

His main selling point? His "massive potential for growth."

Depending upon how you look at it, touting one's massive potential for growth can be perceived as a compliment or an insult, since it could indicate that you've hit rock bottom and have nowhere to go but up.

Nobody -- at least nobody who lives here -- is saying that the city of Durham has hit rock bottom, but face it: the Bull City also has massive potential for growth.

It looks like it's striving to reach its potential, too.

Just drive around or, better yet, walk around the city and you'll see that much is changing for the better. If you ask me, it all started when that downtown loop, a maze of confusing one-way streets, was changed recently. Rumor has it that much of Durham's population growth at one time was due to out-of-town visitors getting stuck on the loop, being unable to find their way out of town and then just deciding it was easier to just stay.

The Full-Frame Film Festival last weekend brought thousands of people downtown, and they and hundreds of others spent a lot of time walking around. It's debatable whether that was because of the Durham Art Walk that was occurring simultaneously or because gas is approaching $29 a gallon and nobody can afford to drive anywhere.

Regardless of the reason, downtown was vibrant with much-coveted pedestrian traffic, not just people who couldn't find their way back onto the highway.

A major renovation is planned for the historic Durham Athletic Park, and distinctive buildings are taking shape around downtown's crown jewel -- the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. Right across the street from there is the toutable American Tobacco complex.

The only downside is that on the other side of the ballpark is the massive Durham County Jail, which, if it had a nickname, would be Durham's "unCrown Jewel."

When visitors take their children to a ballgame, the answer to the inevitable question "Daddy, what's that huge building over there?" is going to mock city planners.

All one can say about the genius who had the idea to make the county jail the most impressive, unavoidable building in the city's skyline is, to quote Bugs Bunny, "What a maroon."

In a column several weeks ago, I wrote that the cities of Durham and Raleigh must've gotten their blueprints crossed, resulting in two monumental municipal missteps: Mixed-up blueprints is the only charitable explanation for how Raleigh put the RBC Center out in the boondocks, while Durham placed its county jail right downtown.

Looking at the construction going up around downtown now, though, it looks like we've got the right blueprint.