The Struggling Downtowns and Main Streets

On my travels this year I found that downtowns are struggling to fill storefronts or getting people to walk the streets, not only in Baltimore, Atlanta, DC, San Diego and Denver but even in parts of Boston which is otherwise teaming with tourists. In Europe the situation is also dire in many, especially smaller cities.

Boarded retail, Paris France (Photo: Philipsen)

The Main Street of my quaint medieval childhood town of Heidenheim is only a faint image of what it once was, now with so many vacant stores. Even Paris has plenty of shops for lease. I noticed a few exceptions, Vienna and Berlin, and to some extent Munich, cities which not only see many tourists downtown but also have still functional neighborhood shopping districts with smaller specialty stores but also shops for the daily needs. In Vienna I went with a friend to those neighborhood treasures, a woodshop that sold tools but also custom fabricated wood pieces per the client's specifications, a pharamacy where they no the family and their medications, a flower shop where they advised on how to best assemble a bouquet. Munich, Berlin, Paris and Vienna all have residential densities that allow retail to persist.

In the US Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) - often called Downtown Partnerships or similar- are employing.... READ FULL ARTICLE HERE