Safety and Perception in Urban Commercial Districts

On the National Main Street email list, a query from Greeley, Colorado--

Our downtown is experiencing a good deal of resistance from business prospects due to perceptions (and some realities) about safety. Number two in the list of negatives on the list is parking (again a combination of perceptions and realities, as I know many of you experience). These issues are having such an impact on our efforts that we are putting major emphasis on resolving the problems and addressing perceptions on all sorts of levels. P.R. is a large part of that, of course, but we're also thinking of things like buying golf carts manned by hospitality people who move throughout the district, offering information, "valet" transport from parking lots to stores, etc.

My thoughts on this, based on experiences in Washington, DC:

I presume that you are looking at urban BID activities for examples. What you describe is SOP (standard operating procedure) for BIDs. Although in DC at least, fortunately, we don't see golf carts, just people standing in various places, in uniform, with maps and stuff.

As a pedestrian-bicyclist, I don't favor motorized vehicles competing with pedestrians on the sidewalks. OTOH, for pr and other purposes, you could try out a Segway or two. Segways seem more approachable and would probably generate more positive feelings than a golf cart.

By the way, the idea of driving people from parking lots to stores is distasteful to me. It's coddling and the patrons might as well be in a mall. What we are "selling" in traditional commercial districts is the outside experience. We should focus on making that experience great (meaning make the environment around our districts great in all aspects) rather than bringing people through our environments in some sort of bubble.

Barracks Row (http://www.barracksrow.org) one of DC's most successful (if not the most successful) Main Street programs, has been immeasurably assisted by the implementation of the parallel Capitol Hill BID, which cleans the sidewalks multiple times each day, and puts more people on the street in uniform, which helps address disorder issues. Had the BID not come into operation simultaneously with the multimillion dollar streetscape improvements on Barracks Row, I think that much of the value of this streetscape investment would have been squandered (at least in the short run).

I have little direct experience with BIDs, but IDA (the International Downtown Association) is the association for BIDs and more traditional (top-down, power broker, "the white guys that run things") downtown organizations, would be a resource. (They have publications on various aspects of BID operations management.) http://ida-downtown.org/

Closer to home for you, what successful techniques have they used in LoDo and Boulder (subject of a long case study in Main Street News, reprinted in _Marketing an Identity for Main Street_) to counter likely similar issues?

There are three major factors, other than actual crime, that contribute greatly to fear/fear perceptions:

• (rampant) trash and litter ;
• the quality of the physical environment, ranging from boarded up unkempt vacant buildings and generally unkempt buildings that are in use to sidewalk quality, landscaping, and lighting; and
• loitering/begging/"street people"/public drunkenness.
  

This is something worth researching (components of people's fear perceptions), and it probably has been researched generally. In your market, it would be worth doing a number of qualitative interviews with people to determine what are the factors that influence the prevailing attitudes. This is one of those areas where what I call Main Street Principle 9: "Honesty about what you have and where you are (and what you need to do as a result);" is really important. (My Main Street Principle 10 is "Making tough choices.")

Karl Seidman's report on urban Main Streets (http://www.fanniemaefoundation.org/programs/pdf/101504_seidman.pdf -- it's called "Revitalizing Commerce for America's Cities") does talk about the safety issue more extensively than most NMSC publications. It is probably the only major factor that might distinguish urban programs from other Main Street program issues. But clearly, if it's an issue in Greeley, it's probably an issue across the board.

David West's measurement indicators (and a similar article in the current issue of International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Marketing) -- (http://www.premierretailmarketing.com.au/index.html for David West) , the Keep America Beautiful litter index (a good example of using the litter index tool in Kansas City, Missouri is available here: http://www.bridgingthegap.org/KKCBLitterIndex.htm), etc. are the kinds of tools that one can use to begin getting a handle on this, as well of course as ensuring that the streets are clean, buildings are well-maintained, etc.

Communities in Washington State, Seattle and Tacoma in particular, in Oakland, CA and elsewhere have focused on alcohol consumption in the public space. This is something that I am pretty active on in DC. But again, it all depends on what the drivers-levers are in your particular situation. (Some citations on alcohol sales issues: http://www.ias.org.uk/publications/alert/04issue2/alert0402_p16.html; and this story from the Seattle Times, "Seattle may extend alcohol-sale limits to much larger area" http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001836223_drunks14m.html)

Parking I can't help you with, being a fervent pedestrian. But the Royal Oak (Michigan) Main Street program has a nice half sheet of paper (printed on index stock) that is a guide to all the convenient downtown parking lots (http://www.downtownroyaloak.org/). Culpeper Main Street in Virginia (http://www.visitculpeperva.com/) and South Side/East Carson Main Street in Pittsburgh (http://www.southsidepgh.com) marks public parking lots on the map inside their respective business directories , I don't know if the other one is online). I think these are all good examples of making people aware of their options (info-knowledge awareness is half the battle).