Empty Downtown. (Tanya photo, 2009)Empty Downtown Escondido, CA.
Downtown Escondido is nice.
There are trees lining the main street (Grand Avenue) and the buildings are neat and clean--maybe a bit old--but very serviceable.
But as I said earlier--there are a lot of empty stores. And the places that are still in business are not the kind that generate a lot of pedestrian traffic or cash flow.
The problem is not unusual, of course. The high-volume stores have moved out to the parts of town where they can offer huge parking lots to the masses of shoppers who drive everywhere.
The traffic is not extreme in downtown Escondido--there are off-street parking lots and there is usually space right on the thoroughfares--but the masses prefer to spend their money at the easy parking--no walking--acreage away from the town center.
Too bad for those of us who LIKE to walk and who enjoy the kind of down-home ambiance of an earlier day. But we are certainly not spending those masses of dollars.
But I DO wonder what good use might be put to all those square feet of empty buildings.
There are trees lining the main street (Grand Avenue) and the buildings are neat and clean--maybe a bit old--but very serviceable.
But as I said earlier--there are a lot of empty stores. And the places that are still in business are not the kind that generate a lot of pedestrian traffic or cash flow.
The problem is not unusual, of course. The high-volume stores have moved out to the parts of town where they can offer huge parking lots to the masses of shoppers who drive everywhere.
The traffic is not extreme in downtown Escondido--there are off-street parking lots and there is usually space right on the thoroughfares--but the masses prefer to spend their money at the easy parking--no walking--acreage away from the town center.
Too bad for those of us who LIKE to walk and who enjoy the kind of down-home ambiance of an earlier day. But we are certainly not spending those masses of dollars.
But I DO wonder what good use might be put to all those square feet of empty buildings.
Tomasito, 2009
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