Public apathy for patronizing local downtown merchants is nothing new. The big question is, why? Parking spaces, or the lack of, seems to come up a lot, but is that really the reason? Just about everything situated downtown is within a block of parking, yet people will go to the mall and walk 10 to 20 times that distance. Another common excuse is, there’s just nothing there. How do you know, have you checked it out lately, can you actually name all the businesses of downtown, without going there now and looking? Sure, the venue could be much more diverse, and that would be great. But, therein lies the conundrum. No one wants to take the time to shop at a few specialty stores, when they can go elsewhere and find big-box all in one shopping, which further exacerbates the problem.
Waiting around for more businesses to open isn’t going to happen unless, the ones already in place are vibrant, nobody will open a store where there isn’t any call for it.
So, if we want this to happen, we, as a city need to make something happen.If people start shopping downtown and want to find more, eventually that’s what would happen, that’s how it works. If more people would crowd the businesses that are there, more businesses would follow the crowd!
