There are countless good bones in American downtowns across the country, but they're seldom connected to enough good tissue to be filled with life. This is the first post on the Downtown Top Ten things needed to make downtowns thrive. And none are the usual suspects. I've omitted stuff everyone else talks about because you already know those. This list starts with #10, which is the easiest to do, and works up to #1, which is the hardest to accomplish, but the most important. It will take a few weeks to post it all because there's a lot of important stuff that gets more involved the deeper we dig.
Downtown Top Ten #10: Start a Yard. It's an excellent urbanism tool for attracting young talent to your town. To older generations, a Yard may be just another place to eat or drink al fresco. To young talent it's also a place to meet & plan. Without a Yard, young talent will still find places to meet and plan like these stone terraces, but a yard is far more comfortable and is also entertaining and you can get a bite to eat or have a drink.
A Yard is so easy to start; all you need is a vacant lot owned by someone who wants to boost its value until it's time to redevelop. This is Wynwood Yard, which was the cultural heart of Wynwood, the Cool Factor epicenter of Miami. Now redeveloped, it's worth millions. So consider any yard you develop to be temporary, and a huge real estate value booster. And because the elements are highly mobile, it's really easy to set up a new one somewhere else in town when your previous one hits the jackpot.
The Yard formula is so simple: Start with a vacant lot, then pour a concrete slab in the middle and cover with a couple sturdy but mobile pavilions with fabric roofs. Install a stage at the end of one pavilion and a bar in the middle of the other. The rest of the site can be gravel. Situate food carts all around so the Yard doubles as a food court. Use inexpensive, repurposed & salvaged furnishings. The more patina, the better. You'll need one overall manager plus shift managers. It would also be great to have someone young with cool graphic and social media skills working this gig as a side hustle.
Older generations come to a Yard to socialize; young talent also comes to strategize, like the group on the left. They're likely not yet members of country clubs or social clubs and are frugal enough at charting their own ways that they may never be, so a Yard is the perfect place to plot town-changing or maybe even world-changing stuff.
Downtown Top Ten Series Posts
#7 - Complete Street Tree Network
