There may not be a way to quantify how interesting or complete a high street is, but it's a worthy effort to try.
Completeness is probably the easier metric. Lay down all the stuff you need. Count one instance of each in a blocked-off area. Count each extra instance as a partial point.
An interesting area is the more interesting problem. You'd want to look for interesting places--galleries, boutiques, music venues, dive bars, etc. You could qualify a place as interesting by somethings as simple as whether it exists anywhere else. Chains are never interesting, as the woman in that 1989 commercial knows.
You'd almost want to give more points for multiple instances of each type of interesting place. 5 galleries on a street is more than 5x as interesting as one, thanks to network effects and economies of scale.
You'd want to look out for multiple sub-cultures. In its heyday you'd see metal heads from the Zoo, punks from Collective, and ravers from Die Maschine out on Osborne. That's interesting in and of itself, and indicates that the street was interesting to more people.
In the interest of seeing how many people the interests on this street can attract, you'd also want to see how accessible it is. Cheaper places are open to more people. Bowery in the '80s was inarguably more interesting than gentrified Bowery now.
Finally, you'd want to find a way to quantify all the shit that's impossible to quantify beyond a binary. Are there graffiti and posters everywhere? Do people sit on the sidewalk? Are there buskers?
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Originally Posted by optimusREIM
^ those last basic amenities that you mention are crucial to liveability. Ironically, the rents driven by the perceived notion that Osborne is a desirable destination street chased away a lot of what made Osborne great. Love me a good food joint but I find it concerning that that seems like the only thing that can survive there… never mind that most of them can’t. Winnipeg sure is a strange city. I often think about how different it would be if the Wilson subway was built. Yet another case of penny pinching that would have done wonders economically and socially for the city. Every time we balk at a project like that or compromise and do something half assed because of the price tag (I’m looking at you SW BRT/“RT” plan and literally every attempt at a freeway), it’s yet another example of being penny wise and pound foolish.
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Totally. It always bothered me, living in Osborne, how so much was very convenient, but I still had to take trips to the suburbs for some pretty basic stuff. Can you even get a shirt pressed in Osborne? Commercial rents in Osborne drive away much of what the neighbourhood needs, but as long as it's an inhospitable stroad, it's not like it's going to attract the kind of rents the landlords feel entitled to.
Wrap it up with the whole penny wise pound foolish thing. It's like investing is a lost art in Winnipeg. Keep your money in a sock until you can afford to buy a rental house or parking lot, then spend your life shamelessly rent seeking.
The other side of that is not knowing the value of what they have. If it's not generating rents, rip it down and sell the scrap. Parking lots generate rents! The Wilson subway is a good thought experiment on what could be if Winnipeger's knew how to invest. But what about just keeping the old tram lines in place? Nobody knows how to keep anything good going either.
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