Quote:
Originally Posted by pesto
Slum lords don't cause slums; liquor stores and discounters don't cause slums. They move there because the area is a slum and that is what is demanded there: low prices, which means inferior goods and services. Slum lords would be happy to raise rents and services if their tenants could afford to pay.
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then more of the responsibility for broadway's embarrassing condition has to be placed on the shoulders of most of the street's customers.
However, I think you're being far too easy on the property owners. that's even more the case if they----at least a few yrs ago----were reportedly making more $$ on rent for stores along broadway than what landlords were getting in bev hills. If so, then simple laziness & greed must have prevented them from doing even basic upgrades & repairs to the front of their bldgs.
Based on what I've seen, read or heard through the yrs, broadway has been shabby & full of dives for yrs----before, during & after the various recessions & boom yrs that have occurred since before most of us were born.
Right now---& not even wondering what type of stores can or can't open up in the hood----I'll actually start feeling better & more hopeful about the street if more of it starts looking like this, a bldg on the west side of broadway south of 7th St...
maps.google.com
^ that's what I mistakenly assumed broadway was going to look like several months ago. I recall purposefully telling a friend to drive us down the street so I could show an out of town relative, who was visiting us at the time, the future potential of that part of dt. I instead became so embarrassed cuz much of broadway still is full of raunchy swapmeet stores. Enough of them to distract from the improvements that have taken place over the past few yrs.
the absentee landlords----or slumlords----have been able to leach off the street cuz there has been a long line of ppl willing to open & run divey stores. Those stores, in turn, have managed to attract enough shoppers to keep such dives in business. So it has been a vicious cycle. Therefore, the first step in making broadway less pathetic----much less making it decent or nice----is hoping that vicious cycle comes to an end.
btw, I read that the largest bloomingdales on the west coast was built in SF, around Union Sq, not too long ago. And a nordstrom's was built not too far from that store several yrs ago. So cities like SF never lost all their residents with $$, daytimers & tourists in the first place. I believe dt Seattle also didn't fall apart as much as LA did. And, of course, other cities like chicago & NYC never lost so much, or any, of their original wealth to begin with.
DTLA may have fallen apart even faster & further cuz so many ppl, instead of being as exasperated by broadway as I am, shrugged their shoulders & said "it can't be helped". Or they'd say "broadway is a different type of retail experience! It's funky & unique! So let SaMO be SaMO, SF be SF, NY be NY, & let broadway be broadway".
of course they'd say that & then head over to century city, the valley, SaMo, pasadena, or maybe fly off to SF or NYC. I'm thinking in particular of ppl in the local media.
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