Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael 61
I’m rooting for a successful, gentrified downtown Wildwood. However, I can’t help but look at so many other towns and cities that have poured millions into attempting to bring their “historic” central districts back to life with dining and shopping. The odds are not good. For every one successful redevelopment, there are many many more that have fizzled, and turned out to be millions down the drain, with empty “gentrified” storefronts. It’s gonna have to be pretty special to get Villagers to leave the bubble to travel to downtown Wildwood on a regular basis. I’m hoping they succeed, but at this point I’m not overly optimistic.
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It seems half the small cities and towns in the USA, want that "thriving, historic, cutesy downtown" we see in movies from the 50's.
The nit wits doing the plans and spending the money, seem to have forgotten that Dwight Eisenhower started America down the Interstate and helped make us a mobile society. We're not likely going back to the days of horse drawn carriages and Sunday Strolls through the antique (junk) shops "downtown".
At least The Villages Developer was smart enough to realize, you need more than "little shops" to make a downtown work ... hence 364 days of music every year, to say nothing of the constant barrage of festivals & whatever.