
Building Better Downtowns One Block at a Time
For those living and working in depressed areas, one of the most difficult steps in achieving revitalization is to visualize a better future. Words and pictures can fail to capture the imagination. Plans may not seem to reflect resident sentiment. Time frames can be frustratingly long. Local governments may lack the funds for implementing improvements […]

Local Taste: Tasting Rooms in Downtowns
Over the last thirty to forty years, the United States has seen a significant geographic expansion of the beer, wine, and spirits industries. Originally limited to traditional industry centers like Kentucky, Milwaukee, the Napa and Sonoma Valleys, and St. Louis, entrepreneurs have started breweries, distilleries, and wineries in other cities, regions, and states, particularly in […]

Types of Downtowns
In my last entry (What is a Downtown?: Changing Definitions for Changing Times), I included my definition of downtowns, which attempted to draw out the similarities between traditional and non-traditional downtowns of different shapes and sizes. While developing a single definition of a downtown provides a way to distinguish downtowns from other commercial areas, identifying […]
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