What is the future of downtown?
At a time when downtowns worldwide are reeling from the triple blow of online shopping, online working and a never ending pandemic many downtown businesses are glad if they can keep the lights on at all. The question how bright the lights should shine seems almost frivolous. Yet, it is a hotly debated issue in many larger cities. In some cases, such as Baltimore, bright lights are even suggested as a cure for the creeping downtown malaise.
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More people than lights: LA in the 1920s |
Downtown as an ailing patient comes like a shock: Weren't cities just enjoying a huge renaissance with urban life as the desired cultural frontier above all else? Well, things can change abruptly and ever since the initial Covid lockdowns the debate about the future of city centers is intense and somehow the matter of downtown video billboards got mixed up in it. The 1965 imagery of downtown as the place to be for all the noise, hustle and bustle strikes us as quaint now, in the more than five intervening decades central business districts have seen ups and downs, never again did they become the hubs of essential retail .... READ FULL ARTICLE HERE
Archplan Inc. Philipsen Architects