The blueprints got switched. Durham got Raleigh's, and Raleigh got Durham's.

That's the only acceptable explanation for the worst civic missteps since the mayor of Chernobyl said, "Sure, y'all can build your nuclear reactor here."

Why else other than switched blueprints did Raleigh build the RBC Center out in the hinterlands away from everything, while Durham plopped its big white elephant of a jailhouse downtown in the midst of everything?

As have thousands of others, people in Raleigh for last weekend's NCAA Tournament complained about the paucity of diversions near the RBC Center. A disappointed Indiana University alum was quoted in an N&O story bemoaning the lack of nearby dining options.

A tip to city fathers: When somebody from Indiana -- the state capital is known as Indian-noplace -- complains that your facility is in the middle of no place, YIKES!

Prescient civic leaders and one wise-beyond-his-years columnist from the beginning proposed building the arena downtown, but others -- led by then-Mayor Tom "Vision? I got your 'vision' right here" Fetzer -- carried the day with the shortsighted view that the cost would be too high.

Higher even than the cost of building it in its present outside-the-Beltline Siberia?

A couple of years ago, after watching the Carolina Hurricanes celebrate their Stanley Cup victory in the RBC Center's parking lot because downtown was indisposed -- it was undergoing a renaissance sans the arena -- I asked Fetzer why he opposed a downtown site.

"It is easy to second-guess," he said, "but I do know that my principal concern was that it was $60 million over budget ... and would have consumed more than a city block."

Ahem. Mr. Mayor, some city blocks need to be consumed. And $60 million? Man, that's chump change when calculating the benefits Raleigh would reap from having thousands of hungry, thirsty, sad and happy fans milling about downtown.

The NCAA Tournament-hosting committee did the best it could with the hand it was dealt, but Raleigh's chances of ever landing an NCAA regional final -- once people go back and badmouth the site's isolation -- are almost as remote as the arena location itself.

The few miles to Glenwood South and civilization don't seem, on paper, like a long way to drive -- unless you've ever left the arena along with thousands of others after a sporting event. In that case, you know that inching those few miles can take a buzz-killing, brake-tapping hour or so.

As much as it pains me to praise Charlotte -- what can one say about Boosterville, Mecca in Mecklenburg, that its leaders haven't already said about it themselves? -- its leaders had the foresight to build Robert "Bobcat" Johnson's arena downtown. Fans at the NCAA Tournament's second round this week can walk out and be close to eateries, drinkeries, even hootchy-kootchy clubs.

Leaders who opposed a downtown site for our arena lacked the guts to eschew the cheapest site for the best one, but they followed a blueprint, all right -- a blueprint designed to make Raleigh culturally irrelevant.

Instead of calling Fetzer's folly the RBC Center, a more apropriate appellation would be the "I'll Be Seein' Ya' Center" -- as in "I'll be seeing ya', Sweet Thang, as soon as I get outta this traffic."