How would you make downtown London a better place?

[GreatTallNorth2]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

. You also cannot compare Chattanooga to London because Chat doesn't have an 8.5 million city just 2 hours away..

Atlanta’s metro population is almost identical to Torontos.(8.5 million is not a number I’ve seen for Toronto)
Atlanta is 2 hours, 10 minutes to Chattanooga.

And once again I did not say London must build an aquarium. It is my opinion that London could greatly benefit from a major attraction.To me the reasons are obvious but that’s ok if you don’t agree with me.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

San Diego’s downtown was heavily revitalized by the move of the Padres’ ballpark from the suburbs to downtown in 2004. I’ve read their downtown was really sketchy before that.

I’ve been there and was quite impressed with the downtown, it’s quite clean as well. There is homelessness there but it was much less than other US cities I’ve been to, or Vancouver.

yes. I was in San Diego in 2004, and there wasn't much downtown (which was still quite sketchy).


Fast forward to 2025, and London's downtown has never been sketchier.

[GreatTallNorth2]

There are some homeless issues in San Diego, but since there are a lot of people walking around it does not seem nearly as bad as London. In London it seems like all the druggies hang out together in groups, but I've just seen a individuals here and there in San Diego. They keep the city very clean too.

[ssiguy]

We know that drugs and homelessness and drugs but what else do you think the City should do?

[GreatTallNorth2]

Just spent the week in Vancouver and they certainly have homelessness and drug issues like London, but the downtown is very healthy, wall to wall people almost all day long. The city has great street level appeal with lots of cafes, shops, etc. Vancouver has plenty of tall buildings, but it is that street level retail that appeals to people. London does not have the appeal of Vancouver, I know that is obvious, but what I have thought is that London has not had any local rich company or individual that really wants to improve our city. In most of my travels you see more of that. Farhi is the exact opposite of what our city needs. He does not care about the health of the downtown, maybe only related to his own profit. We need individuals, with money, who want to improve downtown because they actually love our city.

[ssiguy]

Comparing a metro of 3.1 million to one of 600k is a little unfair. Also, Vancouver's drug and homeless population is exponentially worse than London's. The entire Downtown Eastside is nothing but an outdoor homeless shelter and drug emporium. Truly Canada's only urban slum and can compete with any of the worst ones in the US.

As far as improving the downtown, there are several things the city can do to greatly improve the situation with little or no cost and actually become a revenue booster for the City coffers:

1} Phase out all private parking lots. A City cannot tell you what you can do with your property but it can tell you what you can't do with it thru zoning. If a business has parking SPOTS for employees/customer, then they should be able to keep them but for LOTS they should be forced to phase them out over a 5 year period. They can keep the lots if they want but cannot use them for parking but their taxes remain the same.........they become a noose around an owner's financial neck forcing them to sell to people who want to develop the property.
2} Bring in a VERY hefty tax for all street level vacancies again making them lie empty becomes much more expensive than renting them out at a lower price.
3} Offer lower property taxes and lower development permit costs for the downtown area than outside of it, giving new developments a cost advantage of being downtown.
4} Increased police presence day and night and banning ANYONE from sitting/lying on the sidewalks. Contrary to what the poverty industry thinks, people do not have the right to clog a public space or loiter at them.

[jammer139]

I would add increasing residential densities by making it easier to build much taller and much higher densities across the entire downtown area which is needlessly restricted now. The recent zoning debates because a property is across the street and is only zoned to 15s while on the other side can be much taller. Truly stupid.

In the end downtown needs thousands of more heads sleeping on pillows every night which translates into foot traffic and commercial/retail activity at street level.