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By mystoneycreek (registered) - website | Posted December 16, 2010 at 15:35:17
Oh, if only revitalization was that simple.
With no offense intended to anyone on any of these streets...most especially those who are trying to make a go of being in business...'You can't shine a turd.'
'Sprucing up' storefronts, providing accenting on light standards and the like might seem as if they could turn things around. But they can't.
It fascinates me how people (read that as 'consumers') often feel that they're enfranchised (sorry for the pun) sufficiently through their acts of purchasing to enable them to understand the complexities of the world of commerce. When things are going well, this world is enough of a puzzle to solve. When things aren't going so well...and when many parts of a city have been mired in whatever-you-want-to-call-it for decades...then the puzzle suddenly seems akin to playing three-dimensional chess...blindfolded...while having someone throwing knives at you.
Am I being glib? Yes. Only because from my perspective, this 'puzzle' is not one to be solved by 'sprucing things up', it's one whose solution requires an enormous amount of concerted effort on the parts of many different parties. (And clearly one that's been beyond either the ken or the interest of those either on City Council or within the bureaucratic 'culture of obstructionism' that exists alongside them for the longest time.)
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