Seems another city is engaging in a discussion about removing its ill-advised downtown pedestrian mall from the 1960s. They’re dropping like flies all over the country, from Winston-Salem to Chicago, as municipalities realize this well-intentioned attempt to compete with the suburbs actually did little more than make Main Street more desolate than it already was. And Fresno’s is even among the liveliest of the survivors…
But San Francisco drags out the notion of closing Market Street once a year or so. Since we’re so “different” and “special” here, it’s naturally assumed that any idea which has failed miserably everywhere else in the country will magically and mystically succeed here if it costs a lot of money and inconveniences a lot of people. And especially if it involves making the city look just a little bit more like Disneyland…
Yes, I know I’ve written about this before, but I never cease to be amazed by this san Francisco smugness which says that we can never learn from the mistakes of other cities. We’re only allowed to MAKE the mistakes so other cities can learn from US. Some would call this visionary. Some would just call it wasteful arrogance…
Interesting time-waster for today. Cool photos. Many of which are disintegrating…