by David Frisch | Jun 15, 2016 | Blog, News
We love our downtown. Nobody seems to argue otherwise, so the real question is what do we love about our downtown and how can we nurture it? My answer is this: Downtown offers a unique experience that combines commercial businesses (like retail shops, offices, and restaurants), with public spaces, (like the museum, library, theatre and the river), to create places where social interactions naturally evolve and thus build a great sense of community. You might experience this when you go downtown to shop or eat, and end up having conversations with friends and family you hadn’t planned on having (or visa versa). This appreciation for unique social and natural experiences goes beyond simple consumption and means that our downtown has the potential to transform our valley into a more economically and environmentally sustainable city. Let me explain… A city is like a businesses in that it provides services like roadways, water, recreation, fire and police using its assets. The city has one major fixed asset… Land. When we develop the land we create a tax base to fund the services. What has become obvious is that a compact, walkable, downtown development creates a greater return to the city than building sprawl… Not just socially and environmentally, but economically. It’s obvious how minimizing sprawl can save our natural assets like trees and wetlands, but sometimes its harder to see the how it can save us tax dollars and increase the economic value of our community. In a 2002 study by Tischler & Associates, it is shown that commercial sprawl type developments generate a net annual deficit for a municipality while...
