To make an omelette, you break an egg. To revitalize a downtown ...

From Brooksville (Florida) comes this bit of advice for the city fathers in New Albany, in which the word "vision" seems actually visionary: Revitalize by nixing one-way streets and rerouting heavy truck traffic.

Latest push is on to revitalize downtown Brooksville, by Ferdinand Zogbaum (Bay News 9)

The Brooksville Vision Foundation has a new push in an effort to revitalize the city's downtown ... the main thrust of the latest effort is to bring more people to downtown Brooksville by eliminating some one-way streets and heavy truck traffic.

Foundation members favor making Broad and Jefferson streets more appealing to additional traffic by opening them up to two-way traffic. Also, the group wants to move noisy, commercial traffic out of town.

Jackie Green on Greg Fischer: "No, Greg, it is not about data ... "

So much for Billy "Oakland A's" Beane being an effective elected official, but Jackie is on point: Babbling about data sans context of vision has the net effect of nothingness. New Albanians know this all too well.

Local activist Jackie Green takes on Mayor Fischer’s data-driven approach, by guest blogger Jackie Green (Insider Louisville)

Governing magazine recently recognized several “Public Officials of the Year” — elected, appointed and career office-holders from across the nation.

Mayor Greg Fischer was one of those recognized. He was recognized as being “Data Driven,” praised for efforts such as LouieStat. “It all comes back to information.” The article ends by quoting him: “It’s data, man.”

No, Greg, it is not about data ...

Elected officials, please note: "It Takes A Lot Before A Building Can’t Be Saved."

Broken Sidewalk devotes a brief but powerful post to a notion that seemingly flies over the heads of Floyd County's "leadership" class: It Takes A Lot Before A Building Can’t Be Saved.

You really need to follow the link and see the photos. Here are the first three paragraphs as enticement.

When in architecture school in St. Louis, I remember professors often saying that a building is salvageable until it’s town down. It just depends on the priorities of the community and the willingness to take on a challenge.

Take the above partially collapsed rowhouse in St. Louis as an example. If this building were in Louisville, it would likely have been torn down soon after it suffered the collapse, but in St. Louis, demolition requests were denied and the structure was renovated as seen in the photo below.

While this example is in the up-and-coming Lafayette Square neighborhood of St. Louis, there are also examples of similar renovations in in less well off neighborhoods with similar result. Based on these examples, it seems like demolitions like these shouldn’t have ever happened.

Market Correction: How far should it go?

current Market Street corridor

photo credit: Google Earth

50 years ago

photo credit: postcard, eBay item number 320220724102

roughly 100 years ago

photo credit: Allen County Public Library

Given the spatial devolution of one of Downtown New Albany's central commercial corridors, how should we best reverse course: a return to the type of actual market space that continues to work well in European contexts with lower entry barriers encouraging entrepreneurship and increased foot traffic or by reclaiming lost parking, providing more convenient auto access to downtown businesses and calming traffic through the reduction and narrowing of lanes?