A campaign across some regions of the U.S. are trying to convince their residents to keep their towns weird by buying from individual retailers.
I also include a link to a Globe story from the weekend about Queen St. West's ongoing evolution.
First, an excerpt from the AP story carried by WashingtonPost.com:
The large billboards dotting parts of Louisville are as striking for their color scheme - black and white - as they are for their message.
It's part of a public relations campaign in Louisville and cities from Boulder, Colo., to Raleigh, N.C., aimed at drawing customers to unique, locally owned stores.
The Globe carried a story about Queen St. West in Toronto, and how many small retailers are being driven out as chain retailers try to grab a piece of the cachet they created, driving rents sky-high in the process.
An excerpt:
Some might call the first wave of trendy Queen Street shops, restaurants and bars victims of their own success: They made the strip such a destination that bigger-name businesses have moved in and displaced them. Now longtime Queen Street residents are lamenting the changing face of the strip and wondering how far the corporatization will stretch, especially now that a new American Apparel outlet appears to be nudging the trend west of Spadina.
According to commercial real estate agent Dan Gugula of Colliers International, rents between University and Spadina have doubled since 1993, when the Gap took up residence. About 40 per cent of that increase has occurred in the last two years, he says. Rents of $75 per square foot are now typical, he says, though prices can vary considerably depending on the size of the property.
Many of the businesses that participated in, or at least benefitted from, Queen West's original wave of gentrification in the 1970s and '80s are now absent from the strip. DuVerre Home Furnishings, 20th Century Lighting, Bakka Books, the Allery, the Beverly Tavern and Urban Mode are just a few of the names that have either moved to a more sympathetic address or gone out of business.
Of my own neighborhood, College St., this was written:
College Street, with its conversion from working class Little Italy to nightlife central, has mirrored, in many ways, the commercial transformations that occurred earlier on Queen West. The process continues with the arrival of American Apparel at its new location on College east of Euclid, which has left some wondering whether this is the next hipster strip to go.
However, some said its west end location might save it, as there isn't the pedestrian traffic to sustain the big retailers.
Other than American Apparel, I haven't seen much in the way of new, non-bar/resto businesses here.
And for the three years I've lived here, any retail business that has closed has been replaced by a resto/bar.
Yakking with some people one day, I was told that 20 years ago, College Street was where Toronto came to buy its shoes.
"You know what they're going to say 20 years from now?" I asked rhetorically.
"They're gonna say, '20 years ago, all you can buy in this neighborhood is a martini. And now look at it; nothing but shoes." :)