Bringing Downtown to Life
Roger Brooks
April 2008
It’s seven o’clock Friday evening, and your long-time friends just arrived for the weekend. After you exchange hugs, they toss their bags in the guest room, and you head downtown for dinner, looking forward to catching up on old times.
Downtown is bustling, and your friends comment on how “alive” it feels – people of all ages are filling sidewalk cafes, browsing the shops, talking, laughing, and having a great time. You walk a couple of blocks to your favorite restaurant and ask to be seated outside where you can enjoy the terrific jazz music being performed on the street corner. Your friends look around and ask the question that implies ultimate approval, “When can we move in?” You just smile.
After dinner you check out a couple of shops, stop for gelato, and walk together to a wide-open plaza, enjoying the scent of petunias in hanging baskets and planters along the way. Shade trees line the square, and children play around a large fountain in the center. A musician plays classical guitar nearby, while artists sell oil paintings showcased on a dozen easels. Paper lanterns, suspended from trees, cast a warm glow over café tables and the diners beneath them. The savory scent of food from a nearby barbecue makes you pause, take a deep breath and smile again. This is your town.
This vibrant downtown scene is becoming more and more common in America today, as cities across the nation are undergoing a major renaissance. People everywhere are recognizing how good it feels to gather together in a beautiful setting, to be part of a vibrant social network, and to enjoy being proud of their community. Visitors love to find these lively downtowns during their travels, and talented, young people, the “Creative Class,” are attracted to communities with so much energy and beauty.
What can you do to help your city become part of this great downtown renaissance? There are dozens of great ideas, and we’ve included eight of them here.
Start with a downtown plan
Work with your community to assess your downtown’s strengths and weaknesses. Walk through downtown and take a good hard look at what you have to work with. How much foot traffic is there? Is it pedestrian friendly? What is the ambiance like? Is there much to see and do? Are shops, sidewalks and signs clean and tidy? Is downtown a pleasant, lively place to be?
Create an “Idea Book” of photos from other popular downtowns. Use these ideas to help generate an “Action Plan” or to-do list of low-cost changes that merchants and property owners can implement to make downtown more appealing and inviting. Using your own insights and input from your community. create a vision for the new look and feel of your downtown. Build and follow the concrete steps that will take you there.
Develop gathering places
If you travel through Europe and visit cities that have been thriving for centuries, you find that they all have one thing in common – at least one bustling plaza or town square. People love to gather in vibrant surroundings, locals congregate there, strolling, eating, talking, enjoying themselves, and visitors can’t help but be drawn in. Transform your downtown parks into plaza areas and watch them come to life!
Create a permanent home for a farmers market
Farmers markets have been steadily growing in popularity for years. In fact, recent research shows that open-air markets have become a major revitalization tool for downtowns throughout North America. They attract people of all ages, and are perfect for selling not only fresh, local produce, dairy, and bakery goods, but also local arts and crafts. Be sure your market isn’t on the outskirts of town – it should ALWAYS be in the heart of your spending district. While visiting the market, many people will also spend time and money in local shops, restaurants, and entertainment venues.
Install WiFi downtown
Make it easy for the technically savvy to linger downtown while staying connected. Coffee shops and cafes with wireless Internet access are favorite places to work, study, and socialize. It is also a great asset to lure small businesses downtown.
Include residential
A lively, healthy downtown needs residents, as well as the 9 to 5 workers. More than ever before, people are moving into downtowns. And the Creative Class are looking for places to live that are at the center of the action – downtown. Maximize the use of upper story levels by converting them to apartments and condominium units. Expand your residential offerings downtown so that people of all ages, including families with children, have the option to live there.
Beautify, beautify
Nothing pulls visitors into downtown more than a beautiful setting. Street trees placed every 30 to 35 feet turn an urban landscape into a garden. Add hanging baskets, planter boxes, water features, and display a variety of public art that captures the theme of your downtown. Include benches so people can linger, and use your way-finding and street signs to do more than just give direction – decorative signage and pole banners should become art.
Create an arts incubator
Encourage the artistic talents of your community by offering a space where artists and craftspeople can display and sell their work. An organization, such as the local economic development association or chamber, or possibly the city itself, can lease space in a downtown building. The artists then pay a reduced rent for their section, and there is one, central cashier. Consider creating live/work space where artisans can live in upper floor “lofts,” and have galleries, foundries and shops on street level.
Recruit restaurants, entertainment, and retail
No matter how beautiful your downtown, it won’t attract residents, visitors, or the Creative Class if there’s nothing to do. A variety of restaurants will offer different choices every night, giving people more reason to come back, and retail shops that sell interesting, one-of-a-kind items can pull people away from the malls. Entertainment and shops open after 6:00 p.m. are essential to keep people downtown after work, and bring them back after dark. Since 70% of all consumer spending takes place after 6:00 p.m., you don’t want that revenue to walk out of town at sunset.
As cities evolve, we find our downtowns are more important than ever. They can be the glue that holds our sense of community together, and the incubator that nourishes some of our most creative minds. The attributes that make downtowns attractive to the Creative Class also make them vibrant, healthy, and alluring to residents and visitors. All communities have three significant places for their members. “Home” is the “first place;” our place of work is the “second place;” and the important “third place” is where we gather for social interaction. Every downtown has the potential to be that “third place” for its community.
It’s nearly 11:00 and, reluctantly, time to head back to the house. One of your friends comments, “You know, you’re really lucky to live here. What a great town.” And of course you can’t help but respond with, “We really like it here.” After all, the heart and soul of any community, besides its people, is its downtown.
