http://www.ibabuzz.com/hayword/2007/10/12/improving-downtown/ Sat, 18 May 2013 18:14:05 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 http://www.ibabuzz.com/hayword/2007/10/12/improving-downtown/comment-page-1/#comment-1491 craig Sun, 14 Oct 2007 18:35:29 +0000 http://www.ibabuzz.com/hayword/2007/10/12/improving-downtown/#comment-1491 When the debate began about wheither to build a cinema complex in the Ablertson’s lot was being discussed, Barbara Swarr made the suggestion that a community run health center might be a better option. At first I didn’t think much of the idea . At the time I was using a gym myself to work out and started to count the number of people at the gym. At any given time there would be at least 100 people in the place. I would estimate that a gym/health center would draw more people on average than the cinema or better yet why not have both.
A true health center might be able to focus on programs for people who really need to exercise more This could be done by some sort of door to door survey along with e-mail contact and even robo calls.
Jerry Brown’s Manhatanization concept might be worth watching because if you put more people in a downtown area the retailers should follow.
Also a downtown retailers email system could send out a weekly email about speacials and coupons offered by downtown merchants. Being a bookaholic I’ve always thought a monthly author series with a good city wide email outreach could draw some of the best authors in the country since they ususally come through the Bay Area anyway, when promoting their lastest work.

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