You Can Always Go -- Downtown! But Would You?

[Cunctator]

I do all of my Christmas shopping in the Sydney CBD. It’s close to where I live and easy to get to on public transport. The other suburban shopping centres are chaotic traffic snarls at this time of year.

[Least_Original_User_Name_Ever]

@delphica

As Least Original User Name Ever pointed out, it’s more or less useless because it goes from nowhere to nowhere. More specifically, the debacle was that it took so long to build, and resulted in cars being prohibited on downtown Main Street, that the businesses on Main Street failed at a rapid rate. It was like a ghost town for many years, even in the middle of the day. Now, there were other economic factors at play, and a real public policy analyst could dig down much deeper, but the “common wisdom” is that the Rapid Transit was the last nail in the coffin for downtown. “Rapid Transit” is what it was called when I was a kid, I think it has another name now (Metro Rail?)

I think (fortunately) Buffalo’s architectural legacy is starting to become more commonly known, at least among architecture geeks. And from what I hear, the nightlife was amazing during the time your parents were going there – I have a lot of relatives who still talk about it.

Don’t spend much time on Chippewa Street, do you? MUCH nightlife, there.

[Daffyd]

@Sunspace

Toronto has about fifty thousand people living in skyscraper condos in its downtown, and more moving in each year. This has led to grocery stores returning to the downtown area, now that it isn’t just office buildings and all of the population doesn’t go home to the 'burbs each night.

Hey! My house has been here in downtown Toronto since 1889! All those newfangled condo thingies - acting like they invented downtown… grumble, grumble… Why, when my house was built, there was no downtown… This was almost the edges of town…

But looking forward to the new Loblaws a couple of blocks from here… If they’d ever start to change that hockey arena into my new local grocery store, I’ll be happy… An empty building that Elvis and the Beatles performed in doesn’t help me shop for groceries. And it isn’t really old anyway… It was built in 1931… young whippersnapper!

Hey kid, get off my postage stamp sized, circa 1889 lawn!

[RickJay]

Downtown Burlington is actually quite nice, but there’s no reason at all to go Christmas shopping there. I can get more stuff for vastly better prices at malls.

For good dinners, sure. Products? Nah.

[dalej42]

There is a downtown Dallas. But, you’re probably not going there to shop. You’re driving there and then you’re driving back. You’re going to court, a sporting event, or the art musuem. There are a few bars in Deep Ellum and the West End.

My area of uptown/Oaklawn is probably more walkable and has more shops than downtown Dallas.

Still, for most shopping, you’re headed for Northpark or the Galleria.

[Clothahump]

I’m a native Houstonian. I don’t go downtown unless I have jury duty, I’m going to an Astros game, or I want to see a play. I won’t take a job in downtown Houston unless it pays me an obscene amount of money.

I know that Houston has tried to upgrade downtown and improve its image, but I’m sorry. It didn’t work. And don’t get me started about the pissing away of 600+ billion dollars on that stupid goddam train.

[delphica]

@Least Original User Name Ever

Don’t spend much time on Chippewa Street, do you? MUCH nightlife, there.

Heh, yep, but I’m a little old for the Chippewa scene. There are bars downtown (I’m partial to the Buffalo House myself), but it doesn’t hold a candle to Buffalo nightlife pre-Rust Belt era.

[HubZilla]

@Sunspace

The rectangular building with columns, in the park to the right of your picture, is the Hawaii Legislative Assembly or Capitol or Statehouse or whatever you call it, right? Is that Iolani Palace just in front of it? Must be nice to live in a city with an actual palace. The closest Toronto gets to a palace is Casa Loma and that’s just a fancy house built by a merchant with more money than brains.

Yes, that’s the State Capitol. It’s open-aired, with a hole in the roof like a volcano. Right in front is indeed the Iolani Palace, the only (former) royal palace in the US. They really have nice Xmas displays around downtown and the government buildings.

Yes, we do celebrate Xmas in Hawaii… although I don’t expect a white Xmas. It was 82, but rather windy. Does that count?

[matt_mcl]

Montreal has the highest downtown residential density in North America. People do not tend to avoid downtown, as most of the interesting stuff is there, and there’s a good mix of individual stores, chain stores, and malls. Montreal being the party burg that it is, downtown is busy at most hours of the day and night.

There aren’t really any parts of downtown that are real no-go areas. (There aren’t really that many parts of the city that are real no-go areas, for that matter.) The closest it gets is between, oh, Saint-Urbain and Saint-Hubert, as well as in the area east of Atwater, where social exclusion, drug dealing, etc. are somewhat more obvious than they are elsewhere; but none of it is what I’d call risky and I and most people I know walk through that area routinely.

[HeyHomie]

Downtown Springfield is revitalized to the extent that it’s no longer the derelict hangout of crack whores that it was two decades ago.

Still, I wouldn’t do my Christmas shopping there. For one thing, there are only a few shops, and they’re extremely esoteric: used book stores, used record stores, art galleries, and tourist shops. People who spend their money in downtown Springfield generally spend it at bars and restaurants.