Downtown, Inc. How America Rebuilds Cities

Bernard J. Frieden Lynne B. Sagalyn

The MIT Press Cambridge, MasHaelnisells I .ondon, Fngland 1 A Bunch of Nobodies

In the summer of 1976, the year when cities and towns across the I Ini ted States celebrated the country's two hundredth birthday, Bos­ ton staged a party for one of its own historic shrines. The templelike Quincy Market, centerpiece of three market buildings pointing from I’Vmeuil Hall tow ard the w aterfront, w as ready for business after a liiiir-year shutdown for reconstruction. t fpening day ceremonies reveled in the history of the place. Speak- i in unveiled a seven-foot stone honoring Josiah Quincy, the mayor who had dedicated the original market exactly 150 years earlier, as Well as the current mayor, Kevin White. In front of the Greek Revival enhance with its classical columns, the Ancient and Honorable Artil­ lery Company stood in formation sporting bright blue period uni- II >1 ms while a brass band played "The Star-Spangled Banner." Mayor White called the occasion "truly an historical event, a rebirth." When I he speeches were over, a functionary in a tricornered hat swung a handbell to open the market the way it was done in Josiah Quincy's hum Then White cut the ribbon, and developer James Rouse led a of red-killed Stuart Highlanders inside to pipe in the crowd !• ii a champagne reception. People who turned out for opening day found a place full of sur- I m I mi's .md contradictions. The reconstruction had both preserved and i hanged Quincy Market: it was partly a cleaned-up gem of 1826 ar- lull i hue, partly a contemporary shopping arcade. Work crews had i upped away 150 years of alterations— interior walls, add-on sheds, Mini .■■■densions to reveal the original structure in its graceful sim- i lii |l\ l)u I I hey had also tampered with that historic building. They

i hi a hole in the lirsl floor ceiling to create a rotunda with a view up Inin Ihe great dome above the second story. They took out the old iiiiilllpaned windows and mounleil large shl'ds ol glass on pivots Chapter 1 2

Where produce merchants had once put up canvas awnings to cover outside stalls, they built glass canopies with overhead sections that could slide down like garage doors in bad weather. And where wooden bins and tables once stood, they installed the latest stainless- steel showcases that displayed tempting wedges of cheese and pastry kept cool at eye level. The renovation also made a feature of traditional, comfortable ma­ terials that would have found no place in a modern shopping mall: worn bricks, granite paving stones, rough wooden beams, weathered copper, stone pillars. Antique business signs embellished the ro­ tunda, and glass panels with nineteenth-century etchings of fish and farm animals hung over the central aisle. Another old-fashioned touch came from wooden pushcarts: on opening day some forty of them were dotted around the market, operated by artists, weavers, jewelry makers, and others selling unusual handmade products. Inside the antique shell of a building was a modern, efficient retail operation. At first glance it looked like one of the food courts that had just begun to pop up in suburban shopping malls, but there was a difference: the shopkeepers were independent Boston merchants rather than fast food franchise managers, and they sold top-quality, restaurant-grade delicacies. Their displays were a cornucopia of fresh fruits and vegetables, newly baked bread, prime steaks, imported cheeses, coffee beans, sausages, oysters, and ethnic specialties from bagels to wonton. The sight and smells of food dominated this shop­ ping mall, sold from forty stands plus ten cafes and informal restau­ rants. There were also kitchenware shops and the pushcarts with carvings, pottery, stuffed toys, and other handicrafts. Unlike a shop­ ping mall, there were no department stores and no big-ticket items. Even a starving customer would find it hard to spend more than twenty-five dollars in a visit, and most would buy snacks for less than ten dollars. Few people in the opening day crowd knew why the market was organized this way. Its curious blend of historic setting and modern retailing was part of a deliberate strategy to merchandise history in the form of a unique shopping environment. The plan was for small, independent merchants peddling their wares aggressively to create a lively, colorful atmosphere that would draw customers away from the chain store blandness of suburban malls. To make sure tenants imdeistood that they were to act like old lime shopkeepers, clauses in A Hunch of Nobodies 3

Iht'ir leases ruled out such contemporary touches as canned music, ■hopping carts, and plastic wrappings. I )epartment stores were missing because there was no way to cram I hem into the tight spaces of the old market. National chains were musing partly by design and partly out of necessity. When Rouse's leasing agents had trouble finding enough capable independent mer- ■ I i.mls, they tried to persuade national retailers to locate branches II h iv as well. But chain store executives accustomed to modern shop­ ping malls took one look at the run-down Quincy Market with its basement awash at high tide and lost all interest in this strange venture. the attractive glass canopies that fanned out from the market build­ ing were more than architectural flourishes. To cover the high cost of innovation, Rouse needed as much rentable floor space as possible, and the canopies overhead made room for two more aisles of shops nn« i stands on the ground. The innovative pushcarts, soon widely Initiated across the country, were also there to solve a practical prob­ lem As the opening date approached, leasing was far behind sched­ ule "We have never opened a project that wasn't 80, 85, 90 percent leased," according to Rouse, "and six weeks before opening we were li ■ ■ lhan 50 percent leased." His managers urged him to put off the l.ile summer opening rather than reveal an embarrassing amount of iinleusod space, but he was determined to get the market into opera- ii'mi before Labor Day. The problem was how to hide the empty •lures. One of the leasing agents had interviewed about 900 artists md 11.1Its people who had interesting products but could not afford i" n nl and furnish a store. Now she suggested choosing the best of these prospects and offering them a chance to lease pushcarts by the i" i I lor fifty dollars plus a percentage of their sales. A l l he opening forty-three pushcarts artfully masked the dead •pm es They also added to the carnival atmosphere and made such a lm Dial management set aside a permanent place for them. Renting a pii Is .ii i soon became the way to set up a small business, with most * u.f'i . doing well enough to stay on for years and some moving ■ > i nlii.illy Into full-sized stores. All this was the result of unleased I " ' "ii opening day: "To face that disaster," Rouse acknowledged, we reinvented the pushcart and the one-week lease."1 Mu ll people on opening day were in the dark about why this lm n il market was bmli at all Mayor White's prominence in the l*i"> i t ilings underscored Ihe fact that city government had u majoi Chapter 1 4

hand in it, but few people knew that the city was shelling out $12 million in public funds, nearly 30 percent of the total cost to redo the three market buildings next to Faneuil Hall. Fewer still understood the financial deal the city had struck with Rouse, turning over the entire property to him on a ninety-nine-year lease in exchange for a guaranteed minimum annual payment plus a share of project income from retail rents above that minimum. City officials took the lead in organizing this venture, but they did not have a retail center in mind when they began. A dozen years earlier, redevelopment chief Edward Logue had decided to save the market buildings from demolition because of their architectural merit. After the wholesale meat and produce merchants had moved out to newer trucking terminals, the problem was to find some economic use for the place. There were vague plans for offices or apartments that could fit inside the obsolete shells and pay enough rent to pre­ serve them. Meanwhile this was one of the most prominent sites in Boston— the first place visitors saw when they came out of the tunnel from the airport— and it was a civic embarrassment. To make matters worse, when Mayor White invited guests to his stunning office in the new City Hall, they looked through monumental windows and saw a crumbling market surrounded by delivery trucks and debris from the few remaining produce dealers. Every morning this scene of ruin and litter reminded White to do something to make it into a more fitting symbol of the new Boston he hoped to build. While the city fathers were eager to save the market buildings any way they could, Cambridge architect Ben Thompson became in­ trigued with the charming but useless market complex and began to draw plans for a shopping mall based on the pageantry of food. He showed his plans to Logue, searched for a developer willing to build what he had in mind, and eventually found James Rouse in Mary land. A successful builder of suburban malls and an innovator who built the new community of Columbia between Baltimore and Wash ington, Rouse had the business skills to match Thompson's vision For years he had wanted to build a shopping center in the heart of a big city, and he had confidence that it could be done. Further his company bad the resources to give the city of Boston a solid gun ran tee of financial returns on its investment, The motivations of While, Thompson, and Rouse dovetailed remarkably well to produce a retail project loi the Faneuil I Fill markets. I hi'ii' w.is more to the story behind (Jnlncy Market, howevei. Boston, A Hunch of Nobodies 5

like other cities, was trying hard to rebuild downtown in order to < limb out of a steep decline in its economy. Its first redevelopment projects, undertaken in the late 1950s and early 1960s, proved to be ■ oiitroversial and disappointing. Despite some achievements,such as Prudential Center, the outlook was still bleak. The public at large It Mind little to like in big cities, and developers and investors were avoiding downtown in favor of the suburbs. The largest shopping • enter developer in the country, Edward DeBartolo, summed up the dilution in 1973. "I wouldn't put a penny downtown," he told a mporter who asked about his business plans. "It's bad. . . . Face it, why should people come in? They don't want the hassle, they don't want the danger. . . . And the money: My God, you'd need fantastic government subsidies, amazing subsidies." "No individual or corpo- itile setup," he maintained, "can make even a dent in these prob­ lems. So what do you do? Exactly what I'm doing: stay out in the country. That's the new downtown."2 Faced with these negative attitudes, big-city mayors like Kevin While were willing to take risks, to try new kinds of projects that might appeal to the public as well as demonstrate commercial suc- i eu. A downtown retail center was a new idea and a risky one. If it ivorked, it might draw the crowds that would encourage developers and Investors to come downtown. While Boston was negotiating with Rouse, other cities were also 11 ylng to revive downtown retailing. Seattle was organizing to rebuild H a Pike Place Market, St. Paul was carving out a site for its Town 1 h|ii.irt* mall, and San Diego was studying the first plans for Horton Pin/.i. Maverick developers were responding to city invitations in several other parts of the country. In the West Ernest Hahn was the lending downtown retail developer, beginning with redevelopment piojei Is in I lawthorne and other small California cities in the 1960s md moving on to Pasadena, Long Beach, and San Diego in the early |n '|in Rouse also began to specialize in downtown centers, venturing mln Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Milwaukee even before the Faneuil I lall complex was finished. Another early developer in this field was i 1 dMil Inveslmonl and Development Company, whose Water Tower Plate m Chicago opened the same year as Quincy Market. Several oiIiei downtown iciail centers were already open, including Ghirar- tIt'll! 'it|uare and Ihe C annery in San Francisco, lending credibility to piopimals such as Ihe one that House and I'hompson pul forward. Chapter 1 4

hand in it, but few people knew that the city was shelling out $12 million in public funds, nearly 30 percent of the total cost to redo the three market buildings next to Faneuil Hall. Fewer still understood the financial deal the city had struck with Rouse, turning over the entire property to him on a ninety-nine-year lease in exchange for a guaranteed minimum annual payment plus a share of project income from retail rents above that minimum. City officials took the lead in organizing this venture, but they did not have a retail center in mind when they began. A dozen years earlier, redevelopment chief Edward Logue had decided to save the market buildings from demolition because of their architectural merit. After the wholesale meat and produce merchants had moved out to newer trucking terminals, the problem was to find some economic use for the place. There were vague plans for offices or apartments that could fit inside the obsolete shells and pay enough rent to pre­ serve them. Meanwhile this was one of the most prominent sites in Boston— the first place visitors saw when they came out of the tunnel from the airport— and it was a civic embarrassment. To make matters worse, when Mayor White invited guests to his stunning office in the new City Hall, they looked through monumental windows and saw a crumbling market surrounded by delivery trucks and debris from the few remaining produce dealers. Every morning this scene of ruin and litter reminded White to do something to make it into a more fitting symbol of the new Boston he hoped to build. While the city fathers were eager to save the market buildings any way they could, Cambridge architect Ben Thompson became in­ trigued with the charming but useless market complex and began to draw plans for a shopping mall based on the pageantry of food. Fie showed his plans to Logue, searched for a developer willing to build what he had in mind, and eventually found James Rouse in Mary land. A successful builder of suburban malls and an innovator who built the new community of Columbia between Baltimore and Wash ington, Rouse had the business skills to match Thompson's vision For years he had wanted to build a shopping center in the hear! of a big city, and he had confidence that it could be done. Further his company had the resources to give the city of Boston a solid guarun tee of financial returns on its investment. The motivations of While, thompson, and Rouse dovetailed remarkably well to produce a retail project lor (he Faneuil ! tall markets riicte was more to the story Behind (Julncy Market, however. Boston, \ Ilimch of Nobodies 5

like other cities, was trying hard to rebuild downtown in order to climb out of a steep decline in its economy. Its first redevelopment I'injects, undertaken in the late 1950s and early 1960s, proved to be ■ onlroversial and disappointing. Despite some achievements,such as I'nidential Center, the outlook was still bleak. The public at large loitnd little to like in big cities, and developers and investors were (Voiding downtown in favor of the suburbs. The largest shopping i enter developer in the country, Edward DeBartolo, summed up the it notion in 1973. "I wouldn't put a penny downtown," he told a cporter who asked about his business plans. "It's bad. . . . Face it, why should people come in? They don't want the hassle, they don't want the danger. . . . And the money: My God, you'd need fantastic government subsidies, amazing subsidies." "No individual or corpo- MIr setup," he maintained, "can make even a dent in these prob- lems. So what do you do? Exactly what I'm doing: stay out in the i oimtry. That's the new downtown."2 faced with these negative attitudes, big-city mayors like Kevin While were willing to take risks, to try new kinds of projects that might appeal to the public as well as demonstrate commercial suc- ' cnn A downtown retail center was a new idea and a risky one. If it >■ "iked, it might draw the crowds that would encourage developers and Investors to come downtown. While Boston was negotiating with Rouse, other cities were also n viii}’, to revive downtown retailing. Seattle was organizing to rebuild H I'Ike I’lace Market, St. Paul was carving out a site for its Town < 111• 11«■ mall, and San Diego was studying the first plans for Horton l l i i Maverick developers were responding to city invitations in ■ era I other parts of the country. In the West Ernest Hahn was the leading downtown retail developer, beginning with redevelopment pin]ei'h: in I lawthorne and other small California cities in the 1960s uni moving on to Pasadena, Long Beach, and San Diego in the early N 'Ila Rouse also began to specialize in downtown centers, venturing ini" Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Milwaukee even before the Faneuil I kill complex w.c. finished. Another early developer in this field was 1 d in Investment and Development Company, whose Water Tower PI,ue m ( hieago opened the same year as Quincy Market. Several "Hi, i downtown retail centers were already open, including Ghirar- dnlll 1M |u,n e ,md I lit* C annery in San Francisco, lending credibility to pi"i'"'„il', such as Ihe one |li.it Rouse and Thompson put forward. Artificial Environments

The cities had the leverage to get the kinds of projects they wanted, and some were reshaping the suburban mall prototype into a distinc­ tive downtown product. Where they were successful, they won criti­ cal as well as popular recognition. But there were limits to how far cities and developers could get away from the suburban standard and still draw a mass market. Although retail centers could go from hori­ zontal to vertical and tie their public spaces into adjoining streets, they still had to remain sheltered places, managed with care, and intentionally different from ordinary shopping streets. This protected environment was basic to the success of shopping centers in subur­ bia, and when the cities turned to mall developers to revive down­ town retailing, they were placing their bets on the suburban strategy. By the 1970s middle-class people were avoiding downtown not only because they no longer lived nearby but also because years of decline had left it shabby and unsightly, with porno districts and skid rows pressing on its edges. Crime was an overwhelming concern, and shoppers worried about their safety downtown. A leading spe­ cialist in urban affairs, Ira S. Lowry of the Rand Corporation, had this to say about central cities in the late 1970s: "The quality of urban life has deteriorated. Interracial tensions periodically erupt in mob vio­ lence. Roving gangs of adolescents terrorize peaceable citizens. Mug­ gings, burglaries, rape, and vandalism are commonplace. Drug abuse is widespread. Public schools are patrolled by guards, but classrooms are nonetheless vandalized, students robbed, and teachers beaten. . . . Unoccupied buildings are stripped and burned. Neighborhood retailers close their shops after a series of armed robberies or a night of looting. Public streets are littered and potholed. The sites oi demol ished buildings are plied high with ml infested rubbish Popular Success and Critical Dismay 209

While Lowry's comments had more to do with poor neighborhoods than with the heart of the city, similar images of mean and dangerous streets kept people away from downtown. Developers knew they had to overcome fear of the city in order to attract tenants and shoppers, and the self-contained mall was a logical way to do it. Even devel­ opers who took pains to work their projects into the downtown fabric still controlled them with great care; once inside, shoppers knew they were in a protected setting. Faneuil Hall Marketplace, for instance, has no barriers at its edges. Boston streets run right into the pedes­ trian paths within the project, and these in turn have no enclosures over them. Yet the difference from the street is striking. Within the Marketplace, all the lights work, the benches are in good repair, and the cobblestones are clean to Disney standards. On nearby streets the grime builds up on the pavement, and the wind blowing from the harbor stirs up a swirl of litter. City police make an occasional appear­ ance on nearby streets, but within the project a dozen private security guards on duty at the same time establish a noticeable presence. Critics questioned the results of this strategy to give the public a carefully sheltered, controlled environment for shopping. Inevitably it gave the new retail centers an artificial look. Developer manage­ ment of the tenant mix reinforced a sense of stagecraft by restricting the range of stores to those that were most profitable and then con­ trolling their signs and displays for the sake of uniformity. The new downtown centers look less spontaneous than traditional city streets with their blend of low- and high-rent stores and their profusion of signs and displays ranging from blatant salesmanship to understated elegance. Suzanne Stephens wrote in Progressive Architecture: "Both of the inner-city shopping mall types— recycled buildings or new enclosed skylit galleries— reflect a strong element of escapism. The culture of consumption has always focused on this motif. But the tendency toward ersatz nostalgia on one hand, and controlled, filtered worlds on the other, pushes escapism over the edge into banality."14 Al though Stephens was not opposed to inventing mysterious, exciting environments, she found the drive for commercial success destnic live of creative surprises. In the retail centers that made use of historic structures, the problem was "very predictable shops or restaurants, success breeds ever closer imitations ol 'the successful.' " Newly built centers, on the othei hand, used "the same controlled packaged lot mtilfls ol the suburban counterparts to represent inside an Idealized Chapter 10 210

version of the street outside." Either way, she found little surprise or mystery. Further, she doubted whether commercial activity was com­ patible with good design: "Is the consuming public too preoccupied with eating popovers to notice the historic buildings anyway?"

Highbrows and Lowbrows

When architecture critics discuss retail projects, the conversation eas­ ily turns elitist. In 1981 the editors of Progressive Architecture sat dow n to reflect on three Rouse Company projects: Faneuil Hall, Harbor- place, and South Street Seaport in New York. James A. Murphy started with a patronizing gesture: "I feel we should try our best to view these three Rouse developments as would their tenants and the public. Despite my own lack of interest in giant chocolate-chip cook­ ies, plant carts, and pizza slices, they obviously have their constit­ uency."15 Suzanne Stephens, in the same vein, found the customers themselves creating a synthetic atmosphere: "Seeing hordes of peo­ ple trooping through old buildings munching on popovers doesn't seem much different from an amusement park ambience." Nory Miller attributed the carnival atmosphere to the projects more than the people: "These are places that, by their very nature, turn everyone into a tourist, native or not. They are isolated, self- conscious, and organized for entertainment. What they most remind me of is Atlantic City's boardwalk with a touch of Disneyland." Miller found the attempts at authenticity and local character unconvincing and considered Faneuil Hall "close to having a terminal case of the 'cutes.' " None of the projects had the genuine local flavor of such neighborhoods as Boston's North End or New York's SoHo, or of farmers' markets. The stores did not sell items that were truly lo­ cal, while "the fast food puts fried rice next to souvlaki, coke with everything." Stephens maintained that people do have a craving for authentic­ ity, but what they get at Faneuil Hall and Harborplace are imitations. Even the marketing strategy built around unusual fast foods struck her as phony: "Unlike souvenir shops, gourmet foods look like a 'class' operation, while still having 'mass' appeal." And the interior decor was both unoriginal and damaging to the genuine merits ol the original Pnneuil 11.ill buildings: "Jnz/.y colorful banners, antique signs, crultay interiors, turn ol the-century Iy|>«• furnishings, and globe lights. i anopii". and skylights all now belong to a basii lenova Popular Success and Critical Dismay 211

tion vocabulary for retail/restaurant use. . . . Although Faneuil Hall Market has more architectural character per square foot than most old buildings waiting to be preserved, it is difficult to see the walls of the central market for all the glass canopies." The editors took accurate aim at market features that were less original and less authentic than they seemed, but the question re­ mained whether these were shabby tricks or defensible compromises. Only one of the critics talked about the positive functions of these artificial environments. John Dixon argued that they offer their ten­ ants solid advantages unavailable in more authentic parts of down­ town: "Management promises ample, well-maintained pedestrian space, a complementary mix of tenants, and promotion to attract customers. Alternative locations, . . . with no management or public­ ity, draw fewer visitors of all kinds." Dixon went beyond economic considerations to argue that Faneuil Hall Marketplace paid a debt to architectural history by preserving a landmark group of buildings in a sensitive way: "An important physi­ cal legacy was given a commercial use that fits its form and location." Robert Campbell, architecture critic of the Boston Globe, objected to the highbrow brush-off of downtown malls. Like other critics he used Faneuil Hall as a springboard for his comments, but he came to its defense. He summed up the indictment this way: it is only for tour­ ists, and only white, middle-class ones at that; it is a boardwalk of iicky-tacky boutiques, a cliche of preservation-style architecture, a cynical fantasy of urban life, a Disneyland for grown-ups. He con­ ceded that the marketplace has an "undeniably thin, staged quality." 11 is, he wrote, "a quick fix, an upper of urbanity that lifts your blood sugar and then lets you down, leaving you thirsting for more." All those criticisms have some truth in them, he wrote, "bul the truths tire small compared to the achievement."16 I'o highlight the achievement, Campbell tried to explain why the market is appealing in spite of its weaknesses. I le argued that the public was warming up to cities and that Faneuil 11 all Marketplace suited a time of change in popular taste. It was, he wrote, "a hall way house for people from Ihe car culture who are trying to learn to love ■ Hies again." II coped with people's anxieties by giving Ihem a place that was not dirty, confusing, dangerous, or Irightenlng The market was their "bright, gay, sale cily," I lie arlillciallly ol haueitll I la 11 in I amphell ■ view results hum II hallway house lom lion ll Is .111 Impersonation ol a kind ol uihtui Chapter 10 212

life that no longer exists in most of America" and "a theatrical presen­ tation of street life." It represents "a stage we have to go through as we begin cautiously, self-consciously to re-enact the urban culture we abandoned." Despite these elements of impersonation, Campbell maintained that the marketplace was no fake: "It's as real as it could be and still survive. And it will always retain some element of theater, because all good cities do." Critics who scorned the downtown markets often put them down by comparing them to Disneyland. Campbell offered another com­ parison that was equally appropriate but not disparaging. The parks of Frederick Law Olmsted, widely regarded as masterpieces of civic design, "created idealized, quite artificial rural settings for the resi­ dents of the sprawling Victorian cities who yearned for their lost contact with nature." Downtown markets do something similar by providing an idealized city for people who have lost touch with ur­ banity. Their synthetic character does not make them unworthy or laughable. The Olmsted parks are an interesting parallel, but a more direct forerunner of the downtown mall was the nineteenth-century shop­ ping arcade, which began as a straightforward commercial response to troublesome city streets and eventually won lasting recognition as an achievement of civic design. One wonders how the critics who admire the Milan Galleria today would have reviewed it when it was new. They could easily have rejected it as a sheltered, phony environ­ ment that cut people off from the more authentic experience of life in the streets. What could be more artificial than the Galleria with its triumphal Roman arch for an entrance, a dome as wide as St. Peter's, intricate marble pavements, allegorical frescoes, and statues of fa­ mous Italians? With the passage of time, however, this and other arcades gradually became part of the city around them; critics looking back do not judge them by the hard standards they apply to new and unseasoned projects. Robert Campbell senses a special quality in the way people regard downtown malls: "More than anything else, the marketplace is sim­ ply the place to go in Boston, the place to be. Perhaps each generation creates a kind of mythic building type for itself. What the skyscrapers were to New York in the '30b, the market is today, not only in Boston but in other cities: the place where the god of the city has taken up residence 11 a 111< ■ moment. liaeh became I he architectural myth ol a paiIn 11l.ii time Popular Success and Critical Dismay 213

The market replaced the skyscraper not only as a symbol but also as a vision of what downtown should be like. The skyscraper, as Camp­ bell put it, "was vertical, romantic, silent, aspiring, lonely and pointed to the future." Similar towers were among the hallmarks of the urban renewal era, rising from land swept bare of older buildings and surrounded by open space that allowed people to admire their clean lines from a distance. The marketplace, in contrast, "is horizon­ tal, practical, talky, social, connective and a link with the past." It presents an alternative to the clean sweep, a return to the traditional loims and functions of cities. The popular success of Faneuil Hall Marketplace was an instant demonstration that old streets, low buildings, and snug spaces filled with action could draw shoppers and create dollar value. These re- ori I In made the downtown marketplace a practical model for rebuild­ ing, cities. But was the model flawed by commercial motives, as most in liiledure critics maintained? Commercialism did pose problems, \ cl m m .m y cities developers learned to adapt their projects to urban am 11 a Hidings and to merge high-powered merchandising with good ■ Idiign Allhough the critics scored a few points, they did not make a i (impelling case against the city strategy of tying private interests to pnl'lti purposes. II anything, the public-private combinations pro- iii- Ol d In-ill i solutions to problems by giving city negotiators a chance in scud imsallslactory plans back to the drawing board.