Cityscape

I like active city centers. Walk down Michigan Avenue in Chicago at 9:00 p.m. on a Sunday night and the area is teeming with people. Rich people, to be sure, but people nonetheless. It's full of energy and life and commerce and, last time I was there in December, people playing music in single digit temperatures and even a medical emergency and lots of good samaritans. There's even some culture.

Here in Philadelphia, the Convention Center/City Hall area can't really compete with Magnificent Mile, but it seems to be in the first stirrings of urban renewal. With January temperatures in the high 50s', there were quite a few people out and lots of stores and restaurants. I think some of the stores close early, but...

St. Louis is a long way from Philadelphia and certainly Chicago. It's actually come a long way over the last five or six years, and the Washington Street Loft District has some fantastic residential spaces. It lacks some of the cultural infrastructure to support that kind of urban living, but it's a marked improvement over abandoned warehouses and a city that turned out the downtown lights at six as everyone who could headed west.

I've read a lot of things that focus on strong city centers as the precursor to strong metropolitan areas, and I believe it. I think the combination of leadership and vision (and, in the case of Chicago, some down right dictatorial behavior by Richard Daley part deux) can make the difference.