A Word from Richard Risemberg for August, 2000

I live on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, along what's called "the Miracle Mile." Within a few steps of my front door are two major and three minor museums, dozens of restaurants, and hundreds of small shops, as well as one of the more pleasant parks in the city. The streets around me are filled with a variety of mostly interesting apartment buildings, duplexes, fourplexes, condos, and some older single-family homes, built in a variety of styles ranging from stately old bricks to '50s dingbat boxes to those curious "complexes" that often look like a stucco armoire in which someone was searching desperately for something and never shut the drawers when she was done. There is a diverse mix of people, young and old, married with children and single with dog, gay and straight, every race, every income level from the beggar barefoot in his rags to the stout and rich in silken suits and limousines. There's efficient bus service and a Metro stop not too far off…in short, almost an ideal neighborhood…if it weren't for the appalling impertinence of certain corporate persons who have lately encamped themselves at our doorsteps.

I speak in particular of Rite-Aid, Smart & Final, Sav-On, Office Depot, and Staples. All of these are within a two-minute walk of my building, and within a ten minute walk of at least ten thousand other residents. Almost all of these have arrived within the last decade, most within the last five years. All have built new buildings for themselves, or heavily remodelled an existing one. And every one of them, every single one, has purposely designed a building with no street entrance.

That's right. There is no front door. There is a vast black asphalt plain with narrow stripes painted on it behind each one, designed to be filled with cars, and there is an entrance there indeed. But you cannot walk to these places from your home and feel welcome. When you approach on foot, you are presented with the blank back wall of the building. It does not welcome you. You cannot even see the sign, which is large but placed up high so it may be seen by drivers. In fact, you see no indication whatsoever of what the building is. One could be excused for thinking it a pumping station for the water company. You are not welcomed in. The corporation presents its arse to you. The corporate moon.

The interesting thing is that a revision of the code required that these specific buildings have a streetfront entrance. This was an earnest but typically ineffectual effort to ensure that these buildings not only respected the neighborhood but became a part of its life. And they do have a door on the sidewalk, every one of them: a single, narrow door that is kept locked and chained twenty-four hours a day and is invariably blockaded by piles of inventory in cardboard boxes, dimly visible through the smeared and dingy glass. There is, in fact, a door. One simply may not use it. So if any of those ten thousand or more who live within a few short blocks may wish to walk over to the store, they must go out of their way to enter through the parking lot. Anyone walking by--and anyone passing by in car or bus who has a modicum of attentiveness--is presented with the store's posterior. You are given the corporate moon.

It makes the neighborhood duller, dingier, less friendly. Less a place to live in. Who wants to view insult and rejection every day as they walk down to the corner of their street?

Want better neighborhoods? Here's a suggestion: lobby for a law, a change in code, requiring that all commercial structures must front directly on the street, and that the largest functional entrance must be from the sidewalk. Parking for those who must drive should be under the building, which means that what would have been a parking lot can be far more productive as residences or more shops and offices--but if the parking is not underground, accommodate the drivers with a festive arcade or tunnel leading from the parking lot to the sidewalk. Corporations are notoriously shortsighted, and will fight these proposals, but the change would benefit them as well. One such tunnel could serve several buildings on a block, and provide space for more advertising or even for coffee carts, newsracks, fruit stands, and all manner of small retail that would enliven the neighborhood, provide entrepreneurial opportunities for individuals, and draw more customers for the bigger stores as well--customers who would linger and window-shop and buy more than they would have otherwise. A win-win situation. Why hasn't it come about? Because you and I haven't insisted on it!

Write your mayor and your council representative today. And every month for as long as it takes to get it done. Let corporate moon sink away, and a new dawn come. Let the sun shine on a lively street of friendly entrances and thronging sidewalks. All of us will benefit together.

Go to A Word from Eric Miller

Return to Top