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Originally Posted by emathias
I've thought that pays off River North would work well for activating alleyways. You have a little bit already, but it could open up more.
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Right. Just get a few pieces of land and develop further like in the west part
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Originally Posted by the urban politician
What you are proposing just isn't common in American cities anyhow. We just don't have many examples of retail alley arcades. I would love to see it, of course, but I'm not sure what would entice a developer to create such a thing. Would retailers follow suit? Retailers would probably prefer a more prominent streetfront address.
We have urban malls, which in a sense are just modified retail arcades on steroids. We also have the pedway which kind of counts.
A rare example of what you are describing is Nickel Arcade in Ann Arbor, which I believe was built in the 1920's. As you can see, the world wasn't gushing to repeat such a development all over the place. Maybe Americans don't feel safe shopping in such secluded spaces? There has been ample discussion about how much safer Chinese cities are than ours.
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Yep, but nothing has to last forever. One of the artificial ones created in shanghai, ya yuan which is very touristy, makes I think a few billion per year.
I don't think safety has to do with it. I think that many Americans haven't grown up in true urban environments, so they maybe have more trouble than others imagining this stuff. It takes experiencing it to get the lightbulb turned on.
I guess that one part of Chinatown is the closest we have to it.. It's not bad but needs something more.
We also went to a mountain outside of Chengdu and I was really amazed. They built up these little walkable towns that looked old, in places where you'd be like "I can't believe they built all of this here." Pretty much all for tourists, but very, very walkable. The nature was awesome too
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Originally Posted by PKDickman
The first iteration of the "Wicker Connection" was pretty much this. The pedestrian reconnection of Mautene Ct to Division was to be lined with shops.
We thought it was a swell idea, but when Centrum shopped it around to retail tenants, they got no takers. The only ones who showed any interest wanted concessions the made it unprofitable.
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Oh yeah. They would have been a perfect place for it. That's sad as hell... I can't believe nobody thought it would be good. Why would they think that?