<h2 class = 'uawtitle'>Saving Our Cities With Pedestrian Plazas</h2><br />
<div style='font-style:italic;' class='uawbyline'>by Brenda Phillips</div><br /><br />
<div class='uawarticle'>The pedestrian mall was a twentieth-century solution to deserted downtown business districts. In the new millennium, <a href="http://pavementsurfacecoatings.com">pedestrian plazas</a> are helping inner city businesses, as well as making the quality of life better for residents. A plaza is often a smaller, simpler auto-free zone that functions like a mini park and makes walking both safer and more enjoyable.<br />
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The great shopping malls and big box stores often spell doom for downtown merchants, restaurants, and movie theaters. People from the suburbs and those in the city who are tired of fighting traffic head for the 'one-stop' shopping of the suburban centers. By restricting automobile traffic and making the downtown area pleasant to the eye, pedestrian malls and plazas help keep local businesses alive.<br />
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Cities began to close off inner city streets to automobile traffic around 1960, leaving three or four-block areas restricted to pedestrians. The malls, often in historic districts, feature tree-shaded walks lined with flowerbeds and benches. On each side are storefronts, restaurants, and entertainment centers. People can browse through boutiques and specialty shops, eat outside, and stroll safely through pretty places. Although not every municipality succeeded in attracting enough business to these downtown centers, most malls have survived.<br />
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The plaza is similar in purpose though often much smaller in scope. A plaza can be constructed at an intersection or under the end of a bridge or raised commuter line. Most have no shops, restaurants, or movie theaters in the area itself, although they may host food kiosks or street vendors. Such a plaza provides pleasant places to sit and a respite from the cars that rush by or park in every available spot.<br />
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Some are linear, being a section of sidewalk where trees replace parked cars and raised flowerbeds double as seating. These mini-parks have been built in all kinds of neighborhoods, from the most affluent to the poorest. They come under the supervision of the central government but may be underwritten by grants and maintained by local businesses.<br />
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The cost of continuing maintenance, which far outweighs that of original construction, is often undertaken by surrounding businesses. Stores and restaurants benefit from the increased foot traffic these mini-parks attract. In return, the owners pay for keeping them clean, the flower beds well-tended, and the area well lighted. Local residents can help, too, and community grants can underwrite some of the costs.<br />
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Cities which are making an effort to improve the quality of life for their inner-city residents include Los Angeles and Detroit, both areas with large populations and problems with failing communities. For little expense (relatively speaking), cities can improve the appearance and the cohesion of depressed neighborhoods, which formerly may have been little more than traffic conduits.<br />
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Go online for more information and to see pictures of these downtown havens for pedestrians. You can see how pleasantly they enhance a neighborhood previously a desolate artery for vehicular traffic. Where once there was no place to sit or stroll, now there are comfortable benches, planters of bright flowers, and space for community events.<br />
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