What does DTK need?

[danbrotherston]

I guess I didn't make the point that I was trying to make as soundly as I hoped.

I sort of agree with your point, but a downtown that serves the entire city will always need to exist as a center for government, business, and city wide functions (events, demonstrations, etc). The issue is a lack of an alternative, offering what downtown offers while semi-exclusively serving you and your neighbour's needs and not those of the entire city.

Downtown is diverse and there are lots of people who live and work there. Some probably want more people downtown and some don't. I will say I have met some people who don't want more people downtown (living or travelling) and these people...well I won't make any commentary on their beliefs or values or personality, all I'll say is that I think they'd be much happier if they didn't live downtown.

To cite Jane Jacobs' "eyes on the street" theory, we should see reduced petty crime downtown if more people are frequenting there at all hours.

I'm skeptical about the size of the impact more people would have in our situation. Eyes on the street won't prevent crimes from people with no shame or perception of the world around them, and most petty criminals we have here face no consequences from the police, courts, or community even if more eyes cause more crimes to be reported, which I think is unlike her classic NYC examples.

I think I've come to two main conclusions here. (Like with available parking) the perception of crime is the only thing that matters, and that the amount of crime has little relevance to the perception. People won't come downtown when the media, their friends, their family, neighbours, (and the past 70 years of American import culture) has told them downtown is dangerous.

Whether downtown is actually dangerous, I think it has a higher concentration of crime, but I don't think it's actually unsafe. And I do think that Jane Jacob's arguments were...overly simplistic. People (generally) do like being around other people, and a busy street will feel safer than an empty alley. However, people also don't like different people. Downtown has far more diversity of people (both in race, and in people having life challenges like drugs or mental health problems). One of the points of suburbs was to isolate people from diversity. When you only drive places, you'll only encounter people who live near you, your friends, and your coworkers--which is a group of people unlikely to be diverse in life situation if not more broadly. Suddenly being face with a lot more diversity, will be scary to some people, no matter what Jane Jacobs thought.

And, FWIW, I think there is also a big safety perception that people face when going downtown that is accurate (although never talked about and only experienced by people who GO downtown rather than those who don't) and that is of danger from traffic. Most people probably don't do anything but drive places 99% of the time. That too is dangerous, but most people are completely desensitized to it. When you start walking on our streets and you have drivers threatening your safety constantly, and you experience our car focused infra as a pedestrian, all of a sudden you feel very uncomfortable and unsafe. Some people probably rightly recognize this, but some people might falsely attribute it to downtown.