Cars, pedestrians, race and the fate of 2 downtowns

James Fallows has an interesting report on two California cities struggling to revitalize their downtowns in diametrically different ways - and the response of local residents to the proposed changes. It's a provocative set of reactions and a compelling view on how people form opinions.

Excerpt:

"Eliza Tibbets and her husband Luther built an orange empire in the inland-Southern California city of Riverside, which we introduced briefly here before. As Deb points out, Riverside has undertaken a downtown-revitalization project based on exactly the opposite premise from the one now being applied in Fresno, as chronicled most recently here. Fresno has an arty, high-concept, half-century-old pedestrian mall that was once a commercial success but is now a half-occupied distress zone. The city’s solution is to dig up the mall and open Fulton Street once more to cars. Riverside, by contrast, turned its Main Street into a pedestrian mall not long after Fresno did—and it is sticking with that plan.
Who’s right? Readers weigh in."

Read the rest here.