06-03-2015, 02:58 PM
(06-03-2015, 02:21 PM)Markster Wrote: Part of it is not simply a matter of "kicking out the undesirables". Simply outnumbering them does wonders for reducing the intimidation factor. A sketchy looking guy is more intimidating on an empty sidewalk, than a sidewalk teeming with other random shoppers.
My wife tells me that she still gets the occasional cat-call, or racial epithet. We've still got a little way to go, but that's not to say that downtown is the den of scum and villainy that people seem to remember from the bad old days.
Exactly... it comes back to destinations though - and retail is not the answer. I think the big shift in thinking is that 'shopping' is less and less of a destination these days - (I'd like to think that) People are getting over consumerism and shopping is driven more by necessities and novelties ... or maybe I'm just getting older
... but we've seen scores of retail stores come and go both in Uptown Waterloo and downtown Kitchener - people need other reasons to visit these places and they will start to do casual shopping once they're there. Starting with live/work in the downtown (the path we're on) is the right starting point and the rest will follow with a few nudges and incentives to assist in destination creation