Originally Posted by FullCircle
Last Sunday evening I took a drive around downtown, then through Sugarhouse on my way home. The west side of downtown definitely has a lot of construction going on, with 4th West/Hardware village, an apartment building just across the tracks from it, the building on the northwest corner of 3rd west and north temple, The building on 3rd west and Pierpont, the hotel and apartment building on 2nd south and between 2nd and 3rd west, etc. However, there really weren't many people out and about on the streets, except homeless/druggies/panhandlers. I guess my feeling was, well, with all this construction going on, much of it residential, I'm sure foot traffic and vibrancy will increase soon. But then I think back 12+ years, and how we've been saying the same thing the whole time; "with Westgate lofts, Broadway park, etc, there will be more residents and vibrancy in the area..." Obviously, things are moving in a positive direction, but it still feels like an inflection point hasn't been hit yet; and I'll go ahead and punch this horse, though it's covered in flies and I can't detect a heartbeat, I do think it has a lot to do with the drug/panhandling problems. My wife and I rarely go downtown, mostly because she feels uncomfortable there. Sure, there are lots of positive happy people around, but they feel outnumbered by the negative.
After checking out downtown I drove through Sugarhouse, and there were lots of people out walking, biking, and dining outside. It felt much more vibrant, active, and happy, hence that's where my wife and I tend to go. Of course, there is some of the negative element there, but it's proportionally much less than downtown, so the good sort of overwhelms the bad and it isn't scary or uncomfortable. I don't know what the proportion needs to be for downtown to turn a corner, but I feel it hasn't been reached yet.
People often talk about it, and I agree there is an absolute density level that needs to be reached for a city to have enough people around to feel vibrant, and downtown probably isn't at that level yet either, but I also feel like the proportion I've been talking about is important too. And yes, I'm over simplifying; there aren't just two kinds of people downtown, but when I walk a block and pass three people, two of which ask me for money and one is sitting in the bushes with a needle, it's hard for me to have a positive experience and want to come back.
For the record, I used to go downtown quite a bit when I was single, as the negative elements didn't bother me so much, but I'm a guy and feel fairly confident most places I go. Also, the problems really do seem worse now than they did ten years ago, but maybe that's just my perception.
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